


About Sunshine

by ryanreynolds



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Fluff and Angst, Harry Styles Loves Louis Tomlinson, Harry can control the sky, Homophobia, Louis has a silvertongue, M/M, Mostly Fluff, Romance, Superpowers, in holmes chapel and the industry, it's about half plot and half harry admiring louis, there's a few slurs as well so be careful, this fic is soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:20:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 73,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21586753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryanreynolds/pseuds/ryanreynolds
Summary: A soft magical realism au in which the sky loves harry, harry loves louis, everyone loves louis, and the stars are the goal“The sky,” Louis tells him, “the sky changed. Like magic.”The sky may paint itself in whatever colour he wishes, but Harry wishes he could paint the entire world to fit Louis’ eyes. Everyone deserves to see a blue like this.“Looks like your eyes, Lou”, he softly remarks, out of nowhere, and he only realises he said it moments later when Niall's laughing, hand on his belly, eyes shining with glee.He chances a look at Louis, and he’s watching Harry with a soft smile on his lips.“You think so, Haz?”, his voice isn’t loud enough for the other boys to hear.Harry nods, smile getting a little bigger at the nickname, “yeah, ‘course, Lou. Even the sky needs some inspiration sometimes.”
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik/Liam Payne
Comments: 8
Kudos: 63
Collections: 1D Fic Fest 2019





	1. the sky is in your eyes and i surrender

**Author's Note:**

> THANK YOU for reading, I hope you'll like this one, it's my little baby.
> 
> I want to thank my amazing, amazing artists - Lexa ([lordtomlinson](https://lordtomlinson.tumblr.com)) and Petra ([curlyhairedprince](https://curlyhairedprince.tumblr.com)) who's been so patient with me even when writing was going slow, and who's made such beautiful, beautiful works, I love you guys, thank you for sticking by me
> 
> Thank you to my dream team, Summer and Tina, who's been with me from the beginning of the year when About Sunshine first saw the (sun)light (heheh) and have been the best cheerleaders, helped me with everything and have just been the best friends anyone could aks for. I love you both so, so much, thank you for always being there for me.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who read the very first draft I wrote all the way back in February to get my mind off of things and have been so supportive and engaged, without you - this wouldn't exist. I love you, each and every single one of you
> 
> Thank to my co-mods for, despite us being so crazy busy all the time, having been so amazing throughout organizing this entire fic fest. We did good, and I'm proud of us
> 
> If you wanna listen to a playlist, this is my **[my writing playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4k72h4eav4UnfX5xpYqINy?si=v-LWLshCQXii8l4bx6LiMwI)**
> 
> Without further ado, thank you once more for reading, and I hope you enjoy <3

The first time Harry makes the weather change to his mood, makes the clouds cry, the heavens weep, makes the rains fall, he’s 12 years old. He’s 12, and he’s just realised that when he looks at his mate, Josh, he feels tingles and butterflies and an incredible want to hold his hand, hold him close, keep him warm, safe.

He’s also 12 and has just heard two older guys from his school, speak loudly in the school’s courtyard about how Tommy and Alex from Manchester was seen kissing, was seen holding hands, was seen being in love, and how gross that was. How wrong it was.

He’s 12 years old, and he knows for the first time that there’s something wrong with him. But not like when he asks his mum to buy him the wrong pair of shoes or the wrong band shirt. This is something that can’t be mended, can’t be changed to suit his classmates.

He hugs Josh when the school day is over and his friend’s brown eyes laugh at him, and his arm clutch Harry close to him, and it feels so right, and it can’t be wrong, he doesn’t understand how it can, but there’s so many things he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand how equations work, why he’s supposed to use letters to anything when it’s math and they’ve always used numbers, and he doesn’t understand what the German or French tourists that stumble across Cheshire say. But he will one day, his mum has said, so many things will make sense when he’s older. He’ll be able to solve equations, he will know what ‘ich liebe dich’ means and he’ll be able to say “Je suis allé au cinéma avec mes copains et ma famille”. 

(something’s telling him, though, that he will never understand why two boys holding hands and looking at each other like one hung the sun and the other the moon is wrong) 

“Josh, “ he whispers just before they part, and Josh smiles at him, and he takes a deep breath, “have you heard of Alex and Tommy from Manchester?” 

Josh nods, once, looking a little uncomfortable, but Harry doesn’t know why, “yeah, my brother said what they did was wrong. That they were proper fags.” 

He doesn’t look like he knows what fags mean, but he will know one day, and he will hate Harry. So Harry keeps his mouth shut and gives his friend another hug. 

He runs the entire way home, the sky getting greyer and darker, the clouds growing more and more threatening with each thunder of his heart, with each tear that falls, because Josh called two guys in love fags, and Harry can’t stop thinking of his friend’s black, small curls, his brown eyes, the softness of his hand, and the warmth of his smile. It’s all so wrong, and yet it doesn’t feel wrong, and it doesn’t make sense, not to Harry at 12 whose heart is running wild, whose heart is breaking for no other reason than that he can never let it run free, untempered.

The skies above let out a screech that matches what he feels on the inside, and then the rain falls, and he slows down, feeling the tears in his eyes make their way down his cheeks too. It all seems like the end of the world, but he knows it’s not, he’s just being dramatic. But right now, in the rain so heavy he can barely make out anything past the next few metres, it doesn’t feel like he’s being dramatic, it feels like he can cry and break down without anyone watching. Like the rain is somehow protecting him from any curious eyes, protecting him from weeping over who his heart loves - he doesn’t know anything about love, but he knows that he’s never looked at any girl and felt the same need to hold her hand, hold her heart, that he feels when he looks at Josh - and weeping over the two lads from Manchester who loved and are now known throughout the North like their shame is being spread to make sure no other gets the idea that in this world love is equal, that in this world innocence and naivety isn’t punished.

He holds himself in his own arms, and it feels like it’s the only thing keeping his heart from falling out of his body. He’s not cold, the rain is warm and friendly, seems to want to wipe away his tears, want to wrap him up and keep him safe and away from unfriendly eyes and minds. He has plenty of friends, is well liked, but right now he can’t imagine any placer safer than here in the rain where no one’s judging him and the rain seems to wash his mind clear from the troubling thoughts threatening to break his heart and weigh him down.

The rain stop in the instant that his tears stop falling, and that maybe should’ve given him a clue that the rain wasn’t there because of whatever happens in the sky, but to keep him company, to show the world that here is a boy that is hurting on the inside and no one’s helping him.

The sky clears and he lets his arms fall from where they were wrapped around his chest. As he looks up, the sun begins to peak out behind the grey, dark rain clouds, and in the distance, he sees, not very clearly but if he squinted his eyes a bit, the beginning of a rainbow.

(he’s 12, doesn’t know the significance of a rainbow, doesn’t know it’s the sky’s way of showing him support, the sky that follows his every bid, but it makes him feel safe and warm inside anyway. it’s a beautiful sight after all, a rainbow shining in the sun after a rainfall.)

He’s soaked by the time he gets home to his mum, and she wraps him up in a blanket, makes him tea, and kisses his wet curls when he’s close to falling asleep on the sofa, tea untouched and blanket warm.

“I love you, H,” she whispers, and he smiles into the pillow.

The weather continues to do as Harry says, at first only what he’s thinking, what he wants to happen without ever voicing his desires. Once they’re supposed to go on a trip to some field at school, but only if it doesn’t rain too much, and Harry is bored, doesn’t want to know anything about dirt, doesn’t want to spot for birds, doesn’t want to know anything about corn, so he looks at the clear blue skies with the shining sun and white clouds and wishes that clouds would gather and darken, that thunder would roll and shake the walls, that the only light was from lightning skies.

It doesn’t happen right away, but it does happen, and the power in the school goes for twenty minutes, and Harry’s happy for the way the dark hides his grin at how his wish was granted. His mum picks him up after 45 minutes because the field trip was supposed to last for the rest of the day, and with this dreadful weather the teachers had to unfortunately cancel the trip. Harry tries not to look too smug about it in the car, fails miserably, but his mum doesn’t ask what he’s done now, because what 13 year old boy from Holmes Chapel, Cheshire could have anything to do with the sudden thunderstorm on a Tuesday the meteorologists said would have nothing but sun?

You can never trust what they say, anyway.

(they reschedule the field trip, this time he wants it to snow, knows it’s only October, but it feels like a thousand minus degrees outside, feels like it wouldn’t be too weird for there to fall five or ten centimetres snow a day before halloween. the teachers disagree and so does the daily post, and so does the entire nation, and Harry looks to the sky, confused, as to why the weather has now twice changed to the will of a little boy just wanting to get out of boring school stuff)

(he doesn’t know it’s thrice, nor will he, not until the next time he gets his heart broken)

The first time he’s absolutely certain the sky somehow listens to his every word, acts after his every wish when it appears, is when he wants the sun to shine in the middle of winter. When he’s feeling so low that he just wants to have one proper sun day, a proper summer day in the middle of winter, just to remind himself it won’t always be cold and grey, it will be green and warm in just a few months.

Right now, though, it’s January, and it should be the -9C that it’s been for the last three days. 

That is, until one 14-year old Harry Styles looks to the sky and whispers a little prayer that wouldn’t it be nice if the sun would come back and shower the world in a little bit of warmth, just for a few minutes. Wouldn’t that just be nice?

He whispers his prayer, and turns to go inside because it’s still cold outside and the snow on the ground isn’t even proper snow, there’s too little of it, and the wind is biting, the sky’s grey, and the clouds heavy and no sunlight can penetrate them.

He walks two steps before everything around him is bathed in sunlight, the clouds moving away to uncover the heavens, and he looks back up, shields his eyes from the sun that he hasn’t seen properly since November he’d say, and he laughs when he feels his coat getting heavy and warm around him in a way it hasn’t all winter - always too thin, always too short - and he laughs when he looks down to see the pathetic snow melt because the temperature is rising and it’s rising fast, and so does his spirits. With every bit of sunlight his skin catches, and with every snowflake that melts, it feels like his soul brightens. So he laughs.

The sun is out for ten minutes, and in that timespan it’s risen 20 degrees, and no one knows how to handle that, especially when the clouds go back to covering the sun as soon as a little boy with curls and green eyes feels good enough to go back inside and start working on his music - because he has a song in his heart, and he has a feel for words and the guitar, and he has a dream - and it makes national news once more, and meteorologists put Holmes Chapel on their list of places with weird weather occurrences.

Harry goes four years without ever meeting another person who can do anything beyond what’s normal for a human, for a child. He’s tried to ask his sister a few times about special powers but she’s only looked strangely at him and said that he should talk to Josh about his newest superhero obsessions.

(and that’s another thing, josh is still his friend, and he still feels like holding his friend’s hand would make his heart less heavy, but he was right about josh learning what fags meant and even if his friend looks uncomfortable saying it, he still says it, and that’s enough for harry to never reach for the other boy’s hand, even if he does want to at times when they sit together under the tree sharing an illicit cigarette, under the sunshine harry so wanted, thinking that the cigarette didn’t have to be the only illicit thing they could share)

He’s 16, can make the sky change colour, can make the clouds shift, can make the sun shine bright or dim, can make the clouds rain and can make rainbows across the sky. He’s 16, maybe in love with his best friend, or maybe he’s just never met any other boy he wants to hold and love, and he’s hiding so much of himself he feels like breaking.

It’s not because he doesn’t think he could tell Gemma, at least, about him wanting to kiss boys, even though it’s just not _done_ , but he knows that if he begins to spill his secrets, it’ll be a flood that can’t be stopped. If the dam is broken, that’s it, all his secrets will lie bare, open for Gemma to see and judge him for.

He loves his sister, trusts his sister, but he doesn’t dare jeopardize her love. She’s heard about boys loving boys, he knows this, but she hasn’t heard about her brother loving boys, she hasn’t heard about her brother controlling the weather and wanting to hold his best friend’s hand and kiss his cheeks and lips. He has no idea how she would react, doesn’t want to find out.

What he wants is to find someone who can do as he can do. Control things that weren’t meant to be controlled. Maybe also someone who loves somebody they’re not meant to love, were told not to love but does anyway.

Maybe also someone he can love, can kiss, have and hold. Someone who will love him, kiss him, hug him, be with him.

He wants all of that, and the sky above him turns a soft pink and purple, and it’s not supposed to because the sun shouldn’t go down for another two hours (and it doesn’t, it shines, the sky is just pink). He lays on the ground, in the soft grass, lifting his hand to the sky, imagines the soft colour of the sky on his nails and smiles a little at the thought.

It’s another thing he’s been told is wrong, a thing he’s always thought he would grow to understand why was wrong, but it feels so right, so him, that he’s not so sure the problem is with the thing itself but rather with the people’s opinion on it.

He imagines himself putting on a pretty, soft colour on his nails, to mirror how the sky echoes his feelings, and he doesn’t think ‘that’s weird’, he thinks ‘that’s me’.

He’s not very good at the nail polish in the beginning - he bought a soft purple, liked how it looked with his purple hoodie - but under the sky who’s always been his closest friend, he learns, gets better, can almost do his entire right hand without coating some of his skin in the purple colour by accident.

It’s not because he’s ashamed but he knows the kind of little town that Holmes Chapel is, and even though models on the runways in Paris wears eyeshadow and purple nails, it doesn’t mean he can do it in public here among his childhood friends and childhood memories. So he makes sure to wipe his nails clean, so he doesn’t seem like the odd one out, like the boy who’s hiding something.

All of his friends knows he’s hiding something, doesn’t have the guts to take a guess on his sexuality, doesn’t have the imagination to take a guess on how the sky follows his every command.

They think he’s hiding an infatuation with a girl, doesn’t understand why he’s so resistant to fessing up, it’s unfair to be honest, because they’ve all told him when they had a crush and now he’s holding back on him. They keep pushing, he keeps withholding, and eventually they give up, gets used to the fact that the new Harry is a Harry with secrets and that Harry is now the normal Harry.

Harry has a secret more, not as deeply hidden, but a secret nonetheless.

He’s gonna escape this town, by whatever means possible. He’s been in a band for the past few years, and they’ve done alright, they’re not the best, and they’ll never break through on their own because they will never get the real gigs. In those seedy bars where agents come to listen to the new and upcoming talents.

But there is an opportunity for him to get away using his voice, and maybe a bit his curls - the old ladies at the bakery where he works tells him often enough that his curls and green eyes are the reason for why half of the customers come through, which makes sense because a good half, or well a good third, is girls from his school who never knows what they want but smile at him so he smiles back because that’s what good customer service is all about - to succeed, to travel the world and sing at sold-out stadiums.

That may be in the distant, distant future, but the fact is that he has a chance.

The new singing contest, the X-Factor, has an open audition call in Manchester, and his mum has said that if he makes it past the first few screenings, she’ll drive him down and support him, of course she will, and he smiles at her and hugs her close.

“Thanks, mum,” he whispers into her shoulder.

In this position, his arms wrapped around his mum, embraced by hers, and his face hidden in her shoulder, it seems like he could confess all his sins and secrets, and she’d never judge him.

Maybe she wouldn’t, but until he knows how to break it to her that outside the sky is changing but it’s not because it wants to, it’s because he’s making it do it.

Until then, he doesn’t know how to tell her that he might be gay, because somehow those two secrets have always seemed connected. Like he can’t tell one without telling the other.

It doesn’t go wrong as per say, but reality does come crashing down, makes him understand a little bit clearly just what kind of Holmes Chapel is, and that it’s not changing anytime soon.

“Hazza, lad, what the fuck is that on your nails?”, is what Josh asks him one day, as they kick around a ball on a quiet villa road - another thing that _lads_ are good at, that Harry sucks at - and Harry frowns confusedly.

“What’d ya mean?”, he asks, concentrating on getting the football lined up properly, so he can get a good shot in for once.

He doesn’t get the chance because Andy is a world class footie player and he quickly steals the ball from Harry’s unsure feet, and captures it under his one foot.

“Mate,” Andy laughs at him, “they’re pink.”

They’re laughing, and it sounds like thunder in Harry’s ears. Like the drums of hell. Like the apocalypse, and the final judgement on the final day.

Above their heads, the sky rumbles in displeasure to Harry’s sudden distress, and he feels a little comforted at that. He’s not alone. Not completely, anyway.

He throws his friends a shaky smile and lifts his nails for them to see, “Gems wanted to try out a few different colours for her date.”

For play, he looks down at them confusedly before shrugging, “must’ve forgot to clean them.”

Elliot who’s the more quiet one in the group of four looks at the others and shrugs, “looks good, mate.” And Harry almost lets himself smile in relief until Andy laughs loudly.

“Yeah, if ya a fag, Haz,” and he’s looking to Josh for support, getting a shaky smile and a quiet laugh, and Harry’s nodding even though he wants to scream.

And that’s when the sky opens up above him, and the sudden rain soaks them through in mere seconds.

Andy splutters, looking the most drowned of them all, though he doesn’t know that could ever happen (but he has an idea), and Andy looks up at the sky with furrowed brows.

“What the fuck happened?”

Josh laughs for real now, and he’s so pretty that Harry smiles as well, the storm in his heart calming a bit. 

“What the fuck do you think happened, you idiot?”

Josh comes up and traps Harry in a headlock, “now superstar, let’s get you home, so you don’t get a cough.”

Harry laughs and struggles to get free. “Josh, let go of me for fucks sake.”

The laugh is now right beside his ear, “wouldn’t want to hurt your chances at getting away, Haz.”

And it sounds like reassurance, confirmation, comfort, and the closest thing Josh will ever get to taking a risk in this godforsaken town.

The sky clears bit after bit, and the rain stops, and the sun comes through, and a rainbow appears above the two of them.

Josh walks with Harry all the way to his house, takes his hand just before they part and smile at him.

“Looks good on you, Haz,” and then he walks away, and Harry smiles down at his nails, feeling warm, feeling assured, feeling good.

The rain has never made him sick or cold and it doesn’t start now. He’s not cold when he gets home, and he doesn’t have a scratchy throat in the morning, which is just as well because Josh wasn’t wrong.

He has a chance at getting away from the small town and the smallminded people. He has been given a chance to make it big. And wouldn’t that just be lovely? To make it big, to kiss a boyfriend, wear nail polish on his nails in public without having to blame his sister? To return to this town yearly, with everything he’s ever wanted, and the power to make people leave him alone?

He thinks that would be very wonderful indeed, and it’s the dream he keeps in his mind, and his way to his audition for the X-Factor is lit up by a shining sun on a clear sky, the sun bright and almost seems to be pulsating with joy and excitement, much like he himself feels.

It’s with bright eyes and a hopeful fire in his chest that he talks to television, spends his time waiting with his mum, trying to fight away the nervousness. He’ll do fine. He’s been singing for years, publicly too, and no one’s thrown anything at him yet, so his conclusion has always been that he can’t be that horrible.

But he still can’t get his hands to stop shaking, and he thinks he can hear the wind outside picking up a bit and he takes a shaky breath.

“Harry, love, are you alright?”, his mum asks him, a warm hand on his shoulder, and he nods once, not looking at her.

“Yeah, yeah,” he shrugs, “ it’s just stupid nerves, I’ll be fine.”

After ten minutes of waiting, and his hands not seeming to slow down and relax, and the winds outside are not slowing down either, and from what he can see the sky is darkening, and that’s not supposed to happen, not here, not today.

He’s not supposed to freak out.

He’s supposed to win the whole thing.

“I’m gonna go to the loo for a sec,” he tells his mum while trying to clear his head and calm his hands, get the sky outside to clear and the sun to shine, give him the motivation and courage he can’t find in himself as easily as he could in the car.

There’s no one inside when he goes to the one urinal, which is the best thing he could have hoped for. If he’s alone, he can concentrate on breathing, on counting to ten and finding that _zen_ Gemma has begun talking so much after going to uni and meeting all kinds of new people with all kinds of new ideas and thoughts.

He thinks that even if he doesn’t make it today, he’ll go to uni soon, he’ll study laws amongst other things, and he’ll be out of the town of Holmes Chapel one way or the other. He knows this, so why can’t he just calm down?

There’s suddenly rustling beside him, and he looks up, looks to the side, where there’s suddenly a boy.

And not just a boy. A pretty boy. Prettier than even Josh. This boy is the most breathtaking boy Harry has ever seen, he’s… beautiful, and Harry doesn’t use that word lightly. Has only ever used it for flowers, his mum and sister, and the sky when he’s feeling particularly hopeful and full of love for life, for the future and all the possibilities it holds.

He’s never been in a situation like this, doesn’t know how to handle himself, hold himself, staring at the boy like he is. Staring at his blue, blue, blue eyes, blue like the sky on a day he’s particularly happy and the summer sun is out. Brown hair like chestnuts in the most softlooking fringe Harry ever seen. Skin like Harry’s sun personally came down and gave it a kiss (and if it did, Harry wants to thank it).

All these thoughts, all these observations, all these sudden butterflies in his belly, is pushing away all the thoughts of nervousness, of failure, of being stuck in Holmes Chapel for a few more years.

All he sees is the boy in front of him, and he doesn’t know what to do. Doesn’t know how to act cool. How to seduce. He’s never done this before.

He ends up messing it all up in a clumsy attempt at saying hello - who even does that at a urinal, in Great Britain no less - as he by accident, he swears, jostles his dick, and he stares at mortification down at the now wet spots on the other boy’s trouser leg.

Red hot shame heats his cheeks, and he wants to run away and hide forever, never see another soul in his entire life.

He should never be allowed outside of his house ever again, is what he concludes by his actions because all he can manage to save his skin and go back to cool, suave, is a pitiful, “oops.”

He’s ready for the the boy to yell at him, to huff in disgust and turn around and leave, but all the boy does is look at him with a small smile on his lips. And what a beautiful smile it is, it leaves Harry breathless.

“Hi,” the boy says, northern accent clear just from that little word, and his blue eyes never once waver from Harry’s.

It takes him a minute to first remember how to breathe, and then another to remember how to behave like a proper human being.

(he’s quite grateful that there isn’t any windows inside the loo, so the boy can’t see the sky change to what must be redhot, first because of the shame, and now the warm tingle that harry feels all over on the inside)

“I’m really, really sorry,” he says with a low voice, not knowing how to best phrase it, because how do you say sorry for spraying someone with your pee because you was too entranced by their beauty? “for, uhm, hitting you. I’m really-”

The boy looks at him with bright eyes, and the small smile spreads, and Harry’s breath is knocked right out of him.

“‘s alright,” the boy says, goes to the sink, and just as he turns around Harry hurries to tuck himself in, desperate to get his shit together, to look like someone this gorgeous boy would consider for more than a second if Harry hadn’t hit him with his - he swallows at this - _pee_.

The boy sprays a bit of water on his trousers, and turns around, smile blinding and wonderous, and Harry’s own smile widens a little, dimple proper coming out now, and the boy holds out his hand.

“‘m Louis,” he says, and Harry looks down at his hand, then at the bo-, at Louis’ own, clean, where Harry’s own is full of disgusting germs, but Louis just looks expectantly at him.

“I should,” he mumbles, looking to the sink, shaking his hand, and Louis laughs boastfully, and Harry almost melts at that.

He made him _laugh_.

“You’re good, mate, just shake my hand instead of letting me hang like an idiot”, Louis says easily, brightly, and Harry thinks that if he has ever met anyone who reminds him of how it feels when the sun warms him up from the inside, it’s the boy in front of him.

The smile that had faded from Harry’s lips in his confusion returns in full force, and he grips the outstretched hand tightly, and Louis looks pleased at that.

“Harry,” he says, “ Harry Styles.”

Louis tilts his head a little, “you here to sing, Harry Styles?”

Harry has a very hard time forcing himself to listen to Louis’ words, and not just the way those plumb lips move, but he manages to make sense of it, all smile, and nods.

“Yeah, ‘m here to make it big,” and to his surprise Louis doesn’t laugh at that, doesn’t scoff, but just smiles brilliantly.

“Yeah, yeah, I can see that,” Louis nods, their hands still tightly clasped together, neither letting go, holding onto each other, like they're keeping each other grounded, one the anchor, one the rope, and somehow it’s not weird at all. “Got that star quality, Harry Styles, reckon you’re gonna go on to break many a teenage girl’s heart just by smiling at them, dimples and all.”

Harry’s cheeks go a little rosy at that, he knows they do, and he hates it, but he also kinda wants Louis to keep complimenting him, and he also wants to compliment Louis.

“Thanks, mate,” he smiles, and kinda feels like ‘mate’ somehow doesn’t describe Louis well enough, even though they’re not even _mates_. “Means a lot. You here to audition too?”

Louis shrugs, “yeah, here to try my luck.”

Harry tilts his head at that, the bright boy’s smile fading a bit, and he gives the other boy’s hand a bit of a squeeze, that is hopefully reassuring, comforting, “hey, you’re gonna do great.”

Louis looks at him with bright eyes, smile hesitant for a moment, before it stretches wide, and Harry doesn’t know Louis, but he thinks that this smile might be a bit different from before.

“Cheers,” he says, shakes his head, like he doesn’t believe it, which he should, Harry wants him to believe it, he deserves to believe it, he deserves to make it, “don’t have the same star quality you do, though.”

Harry opens his mouth to protest, because that’s _wrong_ , fundamentally, he knows that’s completely wrong and he wants to protest that, but nothing comes out, and Louis keeps on talking.

“Haven’t got the curly hair you have, the green heartthrob eyes,” Louis’ smiles seems almost… fond, admiring, as he presses on. “So when you reach the stars, I want to be your first official fan.”

“Official?”, Harry croaks out because he has no idea how any of that works, has no idea how Louis’ mind works - but he wants to know, he really does.

Louis laughs, “yeah, you know, with a proper autograph and a photo. All that.”

Harry stares at him for a bit, trying to wrap his head around it, trying to wrap his head around how quickly he wants to say yes, how eagerly he wants to please Louis.

“I mean,” Louis scrambles forward, “if you want.”

Harry smiles again, softly, almost on the verge of a little laugh, “of course, wouldn’t want to disappoint my first proper fan.”

Louis smiles and shakes his head, his voice soft when he speak like he’s not talking to Harry, like he’s not talking to anyone at all, “yeah, wouldn’t have that.”

They’re pressed tightly together when they take the selfie, and it should be awkward, should be uncomfortable, but Louis’ arm fit so well against Harry’s waist, and Harry’s arm fit so well around Louis’ shoulder, and in that moment he doesn’t know whether he should be scared of the thought that he wouldn’t mind staying here for the rest of eternity, or if he should embrace it.

Looking right at Louis when the shutter goes off, probably looking far too adoringly at the other boy for having only just met him, he thinks that this right here is the start of something new.

When he signs his autograph he takes good care to not make any spelling errors, he’s been known to throw in random letters when he’s stressed or just can’t be arsed, and looking over at Louis who’s looking at his phone with a small smile, he can’t resist adding his number at the bottom.

He folds the paper in two, and gives it to Louis, not letting go, till he’s said “it was nice to meet you. Good luck.”

He gives him one last smile, before he hurries out so Louis can’t shout horrible, horrible slurs at him for even thinking that Louis wants to hold Harry’s hand, like Harry wants to hold Louis’.

He finds his mum quickly enough, relieved to find that there’s fewer people in the grand hall than there’d been when he originally went to the bathroom.

His mum smiles at him, “the others will be here soon.”

He nods, sinks down into his seat, feeling exhausted but as he looks out the windows, sees the sun shine, sees the sky have a bit of a pink-orange colour to it, he feels nothing but calm excitement for what’s gonna happen in hopefully not too long.

“You were gone for awhile,” his mum comments with no judgement, no bite, and he shrugs.

“Yeah, there was a bit of a holdup at the, is cool,” he says returning to his phone that’s still as quiet as ever, and he thinks that he really did do the wise thing to run away from Louis before those blue eyes had a chance to turn disgusted, and that lovely voice and accent give him a piece of his homophobic mind.

(in his heart, he thinks that louis would never do that, would never say anything to harry, he doesn’t seem the person, and harry pretty good gut instincts, he thinks. he’d have let him down gently but he would never treat harry like andy would’ve treated him)

Later, when he’s on stage, looking out at the massive audience cooing at him and clapping for him, all he can think of is how someone with blue eyes like the sky and skin kissed by the sun, a voice like the angels, and a smile that could blind, had believed in him.

Had taken one look at Harry and hadn’t thought he looked too much like a kid, hadn’t looked at him and saw competition to intimidate into failing.

Louis had looked at him and smiled and believed. Had said that Harry would one day touch the stars. 

Louis had been peed on and declared himself Harry’s first official fan.

He’ll have to tell his mum about that development later, about her demotion from being his first official fan. And then promptly decides against it, likes the idea of having Louis as his own little person, his own secret, the first of the kind he’s ever _chosen_ himself.

So he might be disappointed by Louis Walsh’s no, but it’s not the end of the world. And if he’s being honest, even as he’s sent out with two yes’ and a ticket to the next step of the X-Factor journey, he’d have survived three noes as well.

Because someone had believed in him even when he himself hadn’t, and that was worth even more than getting three yes’.

(he’ll reach the stars, he’ll make it, for louis and his faith in a stranger, he vows he’ll make it. if only to one day call down to louis and have him pulled up beside him so they can walk through the stars together)

Louis doesn’t text him but that’s alright. Because Louis gave him a gift more valuable than a text back saying ‘i’m flattered but no thanks x.’. Louis gave him his dream back, gave him the belief in his dream back.

Harry will never be able to repay him, especially because he probably will never meet the boy again.

He’d tried to look up if he’d gone through to the next stage, but midway through his search he’d realized, he’d never gotten Louis’ last name and he wasn’t going to look through twenty different Louis’ just to be able to see if he’s gonna see the boy again.

Their first meeting hadn’t felt like a meeting but more like fate, and even if he’s never been superstitious in any capacity, and he feels like if they meet again, and they will, then it’ll be fate.

It doesn’t stop him from imagining, lying under the sun, warming him up, feeling like he’s in the embrace of someone he loves.

They meet again at bootcamp, Louis looking as radiantly beautiful as he did the first time Harry saw him. He looks sure as he smiles at everyone he meets, and Harry stands mesmerized for a few moments, just looking at this boy, so sure of himself, and Harry feels so young, so awkward, gangly, compared to him.

And then Louis looks over, his smile faltering for a second, and Harry feels his cheeks rosen, as he quickly turns around.

He hadn’t written him, of course he didn’t want to talk to- and that’s as far as he gets with the self-deprecating thoughts because Louis doesn’t look away, doesn’t ignore him, he leaves his newfound friends behind with a little wave and makes his way to Harry.

Just like that.

“Harold,” Louis greets, and Harry’s too taken with the smile, with the voice to tell him that technically, _technically_ , his name is just Harry, no Harold in sight.

He doesn’t though, and just smiles and waves.

“Louis,” he says, and then he’s enveloped in a hug, and it feels like being warmed by the sun, just like he’s always thought, and he’s smiling into Louis’ shoulder before he pulls back.

They stand looking at each other for a few seconds before Louis, shuffling with his feet, hand dragging through his fringe, “listen, mate. Sorry for not texting.”

Harry’s already shaking his head, because that’s alright, they’re here, they’re gonna be here together to achieve their dreams. That’s enough.

“I forgot about it,” he shrugs apologetically, “and then when I remembered, it had been too long to not be weird, and yeah, I’m sorry.”

Harry wants to make that awkwardness go away, it’s almost vibrating through his soul, the want to make sure Louis knows he forgives him, wants Louis to smile again.

“It’s alright, Lou,” he says, and doesn’t even notice the nickname slipping out, before Louis is looking at him, not saying anything, just smiling, before his eyes widen and he almost goes pale.

“You don’t have to forgive me, if you think I was a jerk, really, I promise,” he scrambles to say, and Harry’s frowning, trying to understand where it all came from.

“It’s alright,” he repeats, means it, even if the rush of need to make sure Louis was okay is not present this time, or it is but not as consuming as before, almost like wind blowing out fire, leaving only embers behind.

“You’re sure?”, Louis asks again, and Harry smiles shakily, “yeah, I promise you it is.”

Louis’ smile is dazzling, beautiful in a way that has Harry wondering whether it’s possible to outshine the sun.

He takes a look out at the sky, the sun is glowing, but for the first time he thinks he’s found something even more beautiful.

(the sky turns a little pinkish at that, and louis turns to follow harry’s eyes, his eyes widening at the changing colours in the sky, mouth agape like he’s never seen it before. “it’s beautiful out,” he breathes, and harry flushes at that, the pink in the sky darkens a bit, and nods. “it is”. he may not be looking at the sky as he says it)

Louis is amazing, is kind, is gentle and funny, and Harry never gets tired of watching him talk to everyone at the bootcamp. He finds the kids that are the most nervous, tells them it’s gonna be alright, and he tells Harry every day that he’s amazing, that those stars he so craves to touch are just within reach and he’ll get there some day.

Harry doesn’t say how much he wants Louis there with him, because there’s only one winner, but he does. So instead he tells Louis that he’s amazing, that he’s never heard a voice like Louis’, and no one would shine as bright as Louis.

Louis doesn’t answer per say but he smiles, his cheeks flush a bit, and he can’t quite look Harry in the eyes, and Harry feels his own widen at tha, just a bitt.

Because it’s true. Louis’ voice is soft and beautiful, vulnerable and strong, and it feels like falling asleep, and lying under the sun, and it feels like silk beneath your fingers, and Harry has never heard anything like it. Has never been so enthralled by a voice like he is with Louis’, wants to hear it sing every song in the world, wants to hear the different, delicate nuances that Louis unconsciously has in his voice when he sings a line that is particularly emotional to him.

He’s so talented, and Harry wants to tell him this every day, at every moment. Because the thing is, thing is he’s not sure if Louis believes it.

“You’re amazing,” he says to Louis, and Louis tells him that “you’re gonna go far, Curly,” and they each hide their smiles, their rosy cheeks, and they tell each other that they’ll make it, together, somehow.

It’s nothing but two friends wanting to spend time with each other, share their journey towards the stars, but it feels like so much more.

They don’t make it, is the thing.

They don’t make it, their names aren’t called, and it feels like the earth could, should, swallow him whole. He’d thought, he’d believed, that they, he, had what it took to make it through.

He’s sure the winds are picking up outside, that the sky is crying along with him, and he barely feels Louis’ arms around him, when the camera is looking away.

“You were good, Harold,” someone whispers, and it’s in a Northern accent, one he knows so well, and he clutches to the other like he’s the only anchor Harry has, tries to calm down, “you _are_ so good, so talented.”

He doesn’t know what to do with himself, can only stay in Louis’ arms, because it feels safe, feels less like the end of the world and more like it’s just the matter of one door being shut, he’ll find a way to get out of Holmes Chapel.

The sun will shine with him again, and he’ll find a way to the stars.

He looks at the other boys, all with tears in their eyes, each of them faced with the reality of having their dream taken away from them, their hope blown out, and he goes back to hiding from the world in Louis’ arms.

He looks at the boys that could’ve been his competition, but right now they’re all in the same boat, they’ve all been cast away. Right now there’s no more competition, no winners, not among them, here they’re all losers.

“You’re gonna make it as well, Lou,” he says, and he knows that he will, Louis shines too brightly to not make it. Harry knows that on stage, Louis will be magnificent.

There’s something in the back of his head that says it’d be amazing to share that experience with him. Being onstage, singing their hearts out, side by side, looking out over a massive crowd.

He doesn’t know how long it’s been, standing in Louis’ arms, only knows that he’d rather stay here than go home on his own. Alone. Defeated.

“You want to go out and get some McDonald’s, or something?”, Louis whispers, with a slight grin, Harry can feel it against his shoulder, “to get over our sorrows.”

Harry laughs a little, and it feels wrong, to laugh here, in a room that is essentially the casket of all their dreams of making it big, but nothing really feels wrong when he’s with Louis.

“Yeah.”

They don’t make it far, don’t get to untangle even, before someone’s shouting names. Their names, specifically. And three other names, belonging to three other boys, each with tears streaming down their face, but with a new light in their eyes, and Harry can’t do anything but helplessly follow the others.

There are other names being shouted as well, but it’s like there’s something that covers his ears, he can’t focus on anything than Louis by his side, neither of them looking at each other, and the journey to the stage where they’d gotten their hearts and dreams broken not too long ago.

They’ve got another shot. They’ve got another shot at reaching the stars, at fame, at winning the whole thing.

His own joy is so warm that he’s sure the temperature outside has risen, that the sun is shining in celebration, and he feels so happy at the thought, or maybe it has to do with the fact that he has Louis in his arms just moments after Simon has announced that they’re not out, they’re not thrown to the curb, they have another shot at their dreams, and he wants to cry, wants to scream to the whole world that he’s gonna make it.

He’s gonna make it, but not alone. With Louis. With the shy but kind Liam Payne, who Harry has talked to a few times and knows just how much he too wants this, thinks that them two are probably the ones who want this the most, who needs this the most. With Niall Horan, a cheeky Irish lad with a little crooked teeth, bleached hair and a laugh that never fails to spread to everyone else. With Zayn Malik who didn’t wanna dance, but has the voice of an angel, the warmest eyes, and who smiles at Liam like he never wants to look away, and that’s a feeling that Harry recognises from whenever he looks at Louis. 

They’re gonna make it, the five of them, he can feel it in his bones. 

The sun is shining, they’ve got another chance, and he has Louis by his side. 

They decide that it’s important for them to have a good bond before they perform. They want to be friends, and for that they need to spend some time just being them among each other.

So they go to Harry’s dad’s place, uses his bungalow, because it’s somewhere they can be alone, where they can be themselves, laugh and smile, share worries and life stories, and the sun is shining so brightly as Harry thinks of all the possibilities the future will bring them.

Louis arrives first, arrives with a smile and a cap over his unstyled fringe, and Harry’s breath is taken away. He’s happy that Zayn turns up only minutes after, because he's not sure voice would have worked if he'd remembered to use it.

He looks up at the sky to make sure it's stayed blue, a normal blue, but it's not. It's blue, blue like the ocean, blue like the sky, blue so beautiful he wants to always look at it, blue like Louis’ eyes.

“Hi Lou,” he greets him, opens his arms, needs Louis close, and Louis comes easily, and he's still not sure why cool, kind, beautiful Louis seems to like gangly, awkward, childlike Harry, but he doesn't complain because this, holding Louis, painting the sky the colour of Louis’ eyes, is, in this moment and possibly forever, all he wants.

“Good to see you, Haz,” Louis whispers, gives him a gentle squeeze, before he lets go, already on the move to greet Zayn.

Harry misses him the moment he lets go.

All the other boys are wonderful, Harry decides after they've spent ten minutes at the bungalow. All their stuff strewn around like a festival campsite, beers already going warm tucked in crates by the luggage, and five boys looking from each other, trying to make small talk without knowing what to say.

Liam is by far the most eager one to get started on actually rehearsing, Harry knows. Liam is like him, their future plans, their dreams, rely on the five of them getting this right.

Niall and Louis doesn't really seem all that concerned with the rehearsal part of it, just wants to talk, just wants to drink, just wants to have fun; just wants to make friends.

Zayn and Harry are both torn, and Harry thinks they may have the same reasoning for being torn. Harry wants to rehearse, he wants to do this properly, he wants to make it, he wants to reach the stars, but there's a boy with brown hair and blue eyes who's smiling and laughing and who wants Harry to join him in that. 

Zayn on the other hand looks longingly at the beer in Niall's hand, at him and Louis laughing and cracking jokes, but every other moment he sneaks a peek at Liam who stands a little by the side, looking a little lost, a lot determined, hopeful but also not.

Harry thinks, that it's his dad's place and that makes him the host, so he should probably pick up the mantle - even though he doesn't want to, he's 16, the youngest of the bunch, and the others probably don't even want to listen to a kid when they’re older and more mature - and coughs, trying to get their attention.

He gets it too, Niall and Louis looking at him like they're about to crack up - which, fair - and Zayn looks kinda indifferent, and Liam looks at him with hope.

“Eh…”, he starts, hand going through his curls, trying to think of what to say, “welcome, I, eh, guess.”

“Cheers,” Niall says and tips his beer, Louis laughs and does the same, and Harry can't quite keep the smile off his face then.

“Do you have any ideas of what we should do?”, he asks then because again, he's the youngest, he hasn't done the whole prepping-to-be-the-next-big-boyband-thing before. None of them have, to be fair, but they’re all older, they’re all way cooler.

Especially Louis who is looking at Harry with an encouraging smile and sparkling eyes, and Harry can’t quite seem to look away from that electric blue that looks so soft, like water you could swim in for days, like the sky that stretches on forever. He thinks there hasn’t ever been a more beautiful colour, and he’d quite like that colour to surround not just him, but everyone.

He doesn’t even think the thought to an end, before the sky above them is changing, not a sudden change, probably not even a noticeable change, but if someone was to look up, they would see the sky was bluer than ever.

“I saw the sky move,” Niall says and Harry's eyes widen, and everyone else is turning to look at the Irish man as well.

Zayn's the first one to say something, to break the confused silence. “If you saw clouds moving, that's normal, mate.”

And Harry almost wants to sigh out of relief, but he doesn't dare to do anything that will bring any focus unto him. Louis is still watching him too, Harry can feel those blue eyes on him, can see him out the corner of his eye, watching silently, inquiringly. He's almost glad. If he's looking at Harry, he won't look up and see his eye colour mirrored in the sky.

“Nah, I know what I saw,” Niall says steadily, sounding so sure, for someone claiming something so outer worldly. The sky doesn't just move, it doesn't, it only does for Harry. “And the sky moved, changed. From blue to even more blue, a beautiful blue.”

Harry finally looks up to see what Niall's describing, and the colour is even more blinding, even more breathtakingly beautiful, than he ever could have imagined.

He doesn't have to imagine, he sees the very same colour whenever he looks into Louis’ eyes.

“Looks like your eyes, Lou”, he softly remarks, out of nowhere, and he only realises he said it moments later when Niall's laughing, hand on his belly, eyes shining with glee.

“The sky changed to imitate Louis,” and he's laughing and he's not stopping, and Harry's not sure what's happening, but he's sitting down next to Louis, and he's a comforting, warm weight to keep him from freaking out, from giving away his secret.

He chances a look at Louis, and he’s watching Harry with a soft smile on his lips.

“You think so, Haz?”, his voice isn’t loud enough for the other boys to hear, not with how they’re chattering away, telling Niall he needs to take it slow with the beers, and Niall defending himself saying he’s Irish, can hold his own liquor thank you, and he saw what he saw.

Harry nods, smile getting a little bigger at the nickname, “yeah, ‘course, Lou. Even the sky needs some inspiration sometimes.”

And it’s sappy, so goddamn sappy, and that’s usually not him, but Louis bites his lip to keep his smile from widening, looks down, and his cheeks turn a little rosy, and Harry hasn’t ever felt more confident.

It’s not awkward being around the boys, they’re fun, they’re calm, and they feel like friends after just a few hours.

He’s willing to bet that after a few weeks, or just at the end of their stay here, they’ll feel a little bit like home, and suddenly London and big crowds don’t seem as scary, don’t seem as daunting.

One night after a few beers, and when the fire is going strong - despite the rocky start because Louis is not as skilled in the way of camping as he thinks he is, but no way is Harry going to be the one to burst his bubble - and they sit in a circle, as they’ve done each night, he tries to voice this. Tries to tell him how thankful he is they all just clicked. It doesn’t come out as poetic as he wants it to, but as he begins to get sidetracked, maybe perhaps he was going to make sure Louis knew just how much Harry has especially appreciated getting to know him and how much he appreciates the other boy even deigning Harry a minute of his day and maybe also how much he’d like to kiss him, Liam jumps in to voice his two cents.

Sober, he might have thanked Liam for saving him from practically declaring his infatuation for Louis right there and then, but drunk as he is, he only gets irritated, maybe a little mopey to, and sits back to listen to Liam. Louis notices immediately, hooking an arm around Harry’s shoulders and whispers, “don’t worry, Haz, I thought what you said was brilliant”, and maybe it’s not so bad after all. 

Louis is warm, his eyes are sparkling, and Harry can’t look away, doesn’t even look away when Niall spills beer in his lip, staining his trousers, and Louis reaches over with paper in hand to wipe it off.

Warmth rushes to his cheeks, as Louis quietly works to get the worst dried off, he can’t look away. He may be a little obsessed, but on the other hand, Louis keeps looking back, so he might not be alone in that.

The sky remains the same blue as Louis’ eyes, changing so slightly every time a new shade in Louis’ eyes springs forth. And every time it changes, he feels like he’s found his new favourite colour.

If anyone was to ask him, right this moment, what he’d want to do for the rest of his life, he’d answer ‘ _this_ ’. Just this. Watching Louis, laughing with Louis, being with his boys. They’re all new to each other, to being potential stars, to sharing their dream of the stars with someone else. But he’s sure they’ll figure something out. They laugh together, they’re relaxed, they _click_.

They’re young, they’re hopeful, they’re maybe a bit naive. But they’ll do this together. They’ll win together, lose together, stick together.

It’s not what they hoped for in the beginning, but maybe it’s what they need. It’s scary to be all alone in the night sky. If they ever reach the stars, they’ll be able to keep each other warm in the empty blue.

“Whatcha thinking about, Hazza?”, and even though Harry knows that Hazza is just a laddy nickname, like Jezza is for Jeremy, hearing Louis calling him that still makes his inside warm up, still makes his heart flutter a bit.

The sky turns a bit pink, like his cheeks, he’d bet. Soft pink blending with Louis’ beautiful blue eyes. It feels poetic somehow. The colour of the nail polish he stole from his sister meshing with the beautiful blue, it feels like a clash of his past and hopefully future. It feels and looks a lot like hope.

“Nothing,” he says, smiles loopily, head rolling a little, before he locks eyes with Louis, smile widening at the sight of him, “a bit of everything. Thoughts running in and out. Past, present, future. I think we’ll be good, you know?”

Louis doesn’t answer immediately, just looks at him searchingly with a soft smile. Then nods.

“Yeah,” he says, voice lower, softer, “I think so too.”

Harry smiles, closes his eyes.

“Those stars better get ready,” he whispers, eyes opening, locking with Louis, and Louis laughs a bit.

“I don’t think anyone could ever be ready for Harry Styles.”

Harry frowns a bit, even as his insides flutter a bit. “Not Harry Styles, they should get ready for. One Direction.”

Louis smiles widely, “One Direction, you say?”

The others are listening now, and Harry looks over at them, not ruining the moment between him and Louis, he thinks, but expanding it. This isn’t for Harry and Louis only, this is for all of them. Their shared dream, their shared band.

“Yeah, One Direction. All hoping to go the same way. Up to the stars.”

The boys smile, and Harry looks up to the sky. If he says that it’d be beautiful if the stars would shine brighter that night, and they do, well then that probably is only a coincidence.

Louis is funny. Louis is loud. Louis is shy. Louis is beautiful.

There’s so many things to find out about Louis, there’s so many different facets of his personality, some of them contradictory, each as beautiful as the last.

Harry thinks that if everyone had someone like Louis Tomlinson in their lives, someone to keep a smile on their face, someone to hug, someone to admire, maybe the world would be a better place. Because Louis is happy, shining, like the stars, but warmer.

He’s the sun.

And Harry knows he’s only 16, has known Louis for what amounts to a little over a month now. He knows that they’re isolated from reality here, at bootcamp. That right now, when the whole world for him revolves around singing, around the boys, about Louis, that it isn’t reality. That when they go back to reality, nothing will be this easy.

But it’s hard to remember. Because right now, he has his boys. He has his dream, a beautiful view of the sea, of the stars every night. He has Louis, his kind smile, his gentle warmth, his shining eyes.

He has everything he’ll ever need, he thinks, right here.

A dream, a band, a boy.

It’s a bit later, well into the night, and it’s a beautiful starry night. The kind Harry was sure was the inspiration for the masterpiece Van Gogh produced among the fields of Province.

They’ve all kept up their tipsiness, Harry may be a bit beyond that point but not by far, not by far. He’s still relatively able to keep sitting upright, but when Louis offered his shoulder, Harry wouldn’t be one to just so rudely refuse.

He was raised well, with manners. He said please and thank you, and promptly draped himself against Louis, not needing to steal any warmth, it’s a beautiful night and they have their camp fire, but still trying.

Or maybe it’s just an excuse to be near Louis.

Louis’ shoulder is warm, Louis’ side is warm where Harry’s is pressed against it, and his head is buzzing pleasantly.

It’s so _nice_. This night. He’s so thankful they get to have this, this relaxed moment where they don’t have to worry about the future, about competition, about whether or not next week will be the week they go home.

Right now, there’s just them, the beers, the fire, and the bright stars above.

“Reckon, we should play a game,” Niall broke the silence after a bit of them all staring a bit mindlessly at the fire, “if we sit and think for much longer, we’ll all fall asleep where we’re sitting.”

Harry shrugs a bit, acutely aware of Louis’ and his body so, so close, his head on Louis’ shoulder and thinks, wouldn’t be that bad.

“Whatcha thinking ‘bout?”, Louis inquiries, smiling lazily, and he’s so pretty from this angle. Harry has to resist not thumb across Louis’ cheek in reverence.

Boundaries, he reminds his drunk self, are a thing, and you should keep to them.

“Something easy, where we get to know each other a bit deeper,” Niall explains, nodding to Harry who blinks a bit confused until he clarifies, “just so we don’t have a case of someone passing out on us over there.”

He is, categorically, not gonna pass out. He’s not a lightweight. He will _not_ be the lightweight in this group. He may be 16, but he’s not gonna be so embarrassingly far behind the others.

Louis turns his head slightly to look down at Harry who still feels a bit like a deer caught in the headlights. He smiles at bit, puts an arm around Harry’s shoulder and lifts his hand to cart through his curls.

“You sleepy?”, he asks him gently, almost whispering, like he can hear Harry’s thoughts, “it’s okay if you are. We’re probably all gonna go to bed in a few.”

He shakes his head, feeling quite pitiful. “No, don’t wanna. ‘M awake.”

Louis smiles softly at him, but nods. He keeps his arm steadily around Harry’s shoulder though, and with the warmth surrounding him, refusing sleep seems more and more impossible.

Louis leans down after a bit, when Niall’s begun to explain the rules - basically truth and dare without the dare, because they’re all tired, some more than others, no offense Harry, lips close to his ear.

“The minute you want to go to bed, just say the word and I’ll follow you.”

Harry almost - _almost_ \- giggles at that, but manages to hold it off by biting his lip so hard it feels like he’ll bite through and draw blood. He can’t stop the massive smile, though.

“Thank you,” he whispers back, “you’re a darling.”

Louis doesn’t say anything, but he does begin to caress Harry’s shoulder a bit with his thumb.

It’s probably just to help him keep warm, Louis seems to buy Harry’s deception of being cold. He feels a bit smug about it.

He blinks a few times, leaning more heavily against Louis, suppressing the urge to use his hand to wipe a bit of sleep from his eyes. He wants to stay awake. He feels like a kid on Christmas Eve, determined to see Santa Claus come down through the chimney, or those first New Year’s where he had to fight to stay awake to see the fireworks and the new year.

Right now, he’s fighting to stay awake to see the night through.

“First question of the night,” Niall announced with a clap, looking expectantly at them all, smile bright and open. Harry already loved that about Niall. Proper ball of energy and literal sunshine. “Do you guys have any fears?”

Harry almost sits up entirely, not having expected such a deep one from the start. Tries to focus on the heartbeat, faintly notable where Harry’s head is resting on Louis’ shoulder, instead of the fear of them all knowing secrets they couldn’t possibly figure out just by looking at him. No one ever thinks someone can control the sky, the weather. No one thinks someone is gay, just by looking at him.

They couldn’t know.

They can’t know.

He doesn’t want to lose his newfound friends already. 

In and out, he breathes, in and out, until his breathing isn’t that erratic anymore. Until he can stand opening his eyes again and look at the others, try and look for clues that they _know_.

He doesn’t see anything but curiosity and worry in their eyes, and he almost wants to cry.

“You’ve got any secrets, you wanna share, Haz?”, Louis gently asks him, and Harry shrugs.

Being rejected by you. Never achieving my dream, going back to Holmes Chapel, stuck in what feels like the past. Left behind while the others go on to travel to the stars.

Never knowing love.

“Rollercoasters,” he deadpans, and Louis barks a laughter besides him, arm holding him tighter against his side.

“Don’t worry, Haz, I’ll protect you if we go,” he reassures him, “nothing can touch you, when I’m here.”

“Alright, dragonslayer,” Niall laughs from the other side, “quit the flirting, so we can get some truths on the table.”

Harry bites his lip, waiting for Louis to take his arm off of Harry’s shoulder, move away entirely, suddenly shy and rejective. But Louis doesn’t do any of those things, he simply leans back a bit more against the tree they’re by, and when Harry chances a look at him, he looks as comfortable as can be. Right in the position he was.

Harry smiles a little to himself, missing Liam and Zayn’s answers but thinking he heard something very similar about them being afraid of not being good enough and frowns, looking over at them.

“You’re both perfect,” he tells them, tries to sit up a little, to properly get his point across. It’s harder, than he first anticipated, to get up from his position. He’d sunken deeper than he’d thought he had, almost lying entirely on Louis who, with a quiet laugh, helps him sit up properly. He reaches back to pat Louis on the cheek as a thank you, before resolutely looking back at Liam and Zayn, finger pointing accusingly at them, “you do _not_ get to call yourselves anything but brilliant and talented, and some of the best damn voices in our band, and we haven’t even sung properly together. You’re perfect, and we’re gonna best friends, and my friends don’t get to say that about themselves.”

Liam look at him with a touched expression, and Zayn looks so amused, but Harry’s sure he’s touched and happy, he’s just hiding it. Have grown used to it, masking his real emotions. Harry decides that’s gonna end tonight.

In this band, they’re gonna be honest with each other. About the good things, the bad things, the easy things and the struggles.

“Thanks, Hazza,” Liam smiles at him, and Zayn blows him a kiss along with a wink, and Harry laughs brightly.

Louis’ arm almost immediately comes sneaking back around his shoulder, urging him to lie back down, and he goes easy. It’s by far more comfortable lying down here, having view of the fire, the boys, the stars and Louis looking happy and relaxed.

It’s quite a view.

“My turn,” Zayn says, hand going up and down his forearm, like he’s imagining something there, “opinions on tattoos?”

Niall shakes his head immediately, waving his hands a bit in front of him like he’s trying to get rid of some sort of smell, or simply trying to protect himself against the idea of tattoos. As if the word would manifest itself as tattoos on his skin.

“No,” he denies immediately, “no, no, never in a million years.”

Zayn simply grins at him, “see ya in a million and one years, we got ourselves a deal then.”

Niall promptly pulls the bird at him.

“I’d be willing to go for them,” Liam says with a shrug, “I’d want most of them to mean something, like deeply personal,though. I wouldn’t want something on me forever, if I couldn’t imagine forever with it, you know?”

Louis is laughing. “You don’t have to sign marriage license, mate.”

“Well, isn’t it a bit like marriage?”, Zayn defends Liam, and Harry smiles because that’s cute. He hopes Louis would defend him too, if he said something not quite right or smart.

“In a way,” Louis grants him, but is still smiling, like he’s found the perfect loophole, “but you can always get a divorce.”

“You’d get a tattoo erased?”, Harry asks, looking at him from where he’s resting on Louis’ shoulder, “or get one covered up?”

Louis looks down at Harry in surprise, holds his green eyes for a bit, before shrugging with one shoulder so as to not jostle Harry - he likes to think - and smiles weirdly.

“I don’t think I’m one for tattoos,” he admits, and that’s, that’s a bit disappointing, Harry thinks, ready to bring on the pout in full force. Louis’d look good with tattoos, sue him. “But maybe, for some reason, if there was something I’d want to immortalise, to remember even when I’m old and grey and forgetful. If there was something, I’d want to express somehow, maybe I’d get one.”

Harry smiles at that. He’s always liked the idea of using tattoos to tell a story, a story not everyone is to be granted access to understand. One for him and maybe one other.

“I’d go for them, in a heartbeat,” Harry chimes in, “think they’re absolutely sick.”

And it’s like that’s a trigger, that word, as he shoots up the instant he’s said it, diving, trying to scramble as far as possible, before vomit shoots up.

There’s some rustling in the leaves, and breathing heavily, feeling crappy and weak and tired and like he wants to sleep forever, he looks back.

Louis is walking, slowly, towards him, brows furrowed, eyes concerned.

“You alright, Haz?”

He wants to nod, but Louis is bending down to sit beside him, hand caressing his cheeks, going up to rustle his hair a bit, so he shakes his head, almost a pavlovian response to get Louis to continue.

He smiles softly, “poor thing, let’s get you to bed?”

“Please,” Harry whispers, and Louis nods resolutely.

“Let’s go then.”

Letting Louis guide him, gently, without too much pushing, waiting on him, but never letting him stumble or feel inadequate, Harry feels so light inside. In a way he hasn’t before.

When he’s in bed, everything turning on itself, like he’s on the top of a globus, and he feels quite intimidated by the headache that awaits him the next morning, he stretches out to take Louis’ hand or at least get his attention.

“You’re okay there, Haz?”, Louis asks him after a few seconds of him waving his arm around helplessly, and Harry looks at him with a smile and nods.

Louis smiles at him, head slightly tilted, hand caressing Harry’s slightly damp cheek. “Goodnight, Haz.”

Harry closes his eyes, focuses on getting his head to stay still, it’s circling, circling, circling, and when he opens his eyes again, Louis is gone. He might have fallen asleep, because his head is infinitely better.

He closes his eyes again, smiling, this was a good night, difficulties despite. Louis helped him. Led him back home. Like a compass leads the lost sailor and his ship home.

They sing with each other for the next many days. They laugh around the campfire, they get to know each other, they drink, they play footie - and Harry still isn’t better than he was on the school playground in Holmes Chapel, but Louis is helping him, with how to place his foot when he kicks, how to have better focus over the field.

It’s a shame his focus is mostly at Louis’ mouth working its way around the words as he enthusiastically tries to explain to Harry all the best techniques for all the positions. Louis is simply beautiful when he’s excited about something.

They might have once been competitors, but here, in the little forest by Harry’s dad’s, they become a band. They become friends.

“Simon Cowell ain’t ready for us,” Niall says, and when Harry looks at Liam, who’d been at the next stage before, he’s smiling.

“He won’t even see us coming,” Liam agrees, and Zayn slings an arm around his shoulders.

“Harry.”

“Haz.”

“Hazza.”

“H.”

“Harryyy.”

It’s morning, still golden and orange outside, the sky warming up, gathering the strength, to yet another day. The sun still half asleep, but slowly waking up.

Just like Harry.

Only his process has been slightly sped up by the boy who decided to first jump on top of him and then whisper, plead in his ears to wake up, to pay attention to him.

He groans a bit, hoping it’ll make Louis calm down a bit, just for five minutes. Harry just needs five minutes, then he’ll be ready. Ready to smile at Louis for an entire day, admire him, hope, hope, hope.

Ready to paint the sky in whatever colour Louis’ eyes are, showing the world how beautiful his boy is.

“Harry, open your eyes,” Louis whispers, a finger tracing the shape of his eyebrows, traveling down his nose, continuing, stopping by his mouth, lingers, continues down to his chin, traveling back up his jaw line, repeating the route.

One round, two rounds, three rounds, calming Harry, making him sink further into Louis’ touch, body, presence.

“Wake up, Harry,” Louis whispers, softly, soft like his hair, his smile, his voice. Everything about Louis is soft. Harry could go on, could mention every little thing about Louis that is soft, beautiful, magical.

“Don’t wanna, Lou,” he groans, stretching his back, legs, body a little, head pressing against Louis’ touch, “wanna sleep.”

Louis presses closer to him, and Harry does the same, magnets the two of them, drawn to each other, have been since the beginning.

“But I’m bored,” and that’s that really.

Louis’s bored. Harry wants do anything to keep Louis happy, light, smiling, shining.

So he opens his eyes, looks into Louis’ eyes, and they’re so beautiful. He doesn’t even look out the window to know, that the sky is changing in a second. Louis turns in a second when the entire light in the room changes, mouth gaping as he looks at the light blue sky that should be yellow, should be orange, shouldn’t be blue, can’t be blue, it’s only been a minute since it was golden. 

“Did you see that?”, and Louis’ voice is wavering a bit, like he’s not quite trusting it, trusting himself, his eyes.

“See what?”, Harry says, yawns, tries to keep it subtle, tries to keep it relaxed.

“The sky,” Louis tells him, “the sky changed. Like magic.”

Harry finally tears his eyes away from Louis, looks at the sky, smiles a bit. “Looks magical.” His eyes automatically return to Louis, to those eyes. The sky may paint itself in whatever colour he wishes, but Harry wishes he could paint the entire world to fit Louis’ eyes. Everyone deserves to see a blue like this. He can see Louis wants to say something, is about to open his mouth, talk about how it’s impossible and maybe even remember how Niall once said the same. The sky’s colour changed in a second. 

So he does what he does best, steals Louis’ attention. “Looks like you.”

Louis splutters a bit at that, blinks, looks from the sky to Harry, back again, and then Harry again. 

Pouting, he says, “shut up,” and then pushes Harry off the bed.

“I wanna go swimming.”

He sits back up, grinning from ear to ear, fully awake and calmly says, “ what the king wants, the king gets.”

Louis grins, the corner of his mouth only shaking a bit, and laughs, pitch only slightly below what it usually is. “And don’t you forget it.”

It’s one of their days off. And because they’re a band and friends, and band of friends does everything together when they’ve only got each other and their dream, they do everything together. It’s mostly because they don’t know anyone else right now, they don’t trust anyone else right now, and a little bit - as Niall put it - training for when they make it big.

They’ll go through everything together when they win the X Factor, might as well start now, he said, and the others nodded along, hopeful gleams in their eyes and wide smiles.

If Niall grins at them all, and Harry and Louis, and Zayn and Liam, share secret smiles, just for them even if they’re not sure what they mean, then nobody’s saying anything about it.

The beach is always lovely, but today it’s amazing weather, the sun is shining because Harry is happy, and the sky is blue because Harry’s looking at Louis, and the water is bright and blue. So much blue around him, and the only blue he’s concerned about is in Louis’ eyes.

“Harry,” Liam says beside him, and it sounds a bit ominous because despite Liam being serious very often, wanting this so much with every fiber of his being, he’s learned to take a pause when they’re not practicing. To enjoy the journey with his boys, like they’re enjoying it with him. 

Come what may, Harry always thinks, we have each other’s backs and that’s that.

“Yeah, Lee?” Harry answers, not really looking at Liam or paying attention, because Louis and Niall are playing in the water, and Louis’s laughing so brightly that Harry feels he may very well be blinded.

It’s like looking at the goddamn sun sometimes, Louis’ happiness. It’s infectious and warm.

“You know, Harry,” Liam says, calm as can be,” if it wasn’t because I was so sure you would never ignore me, I’d think you were more interested in watching Louis having fun.”

Harry’s head turns so quickly he may have gotten whiplash. “What? Why would you say that?” Not that it isn’t true, he just wants to know why Liam thinks so. And he’s just hoping there’s a way he can divert the conversation to be about Liam and Zayn in some way, and not Harry’s crush on the sun himself over there.

It’s just a crush though. Don’t get him wrong, he is so infatuated with Louis, his eyes, his smile, his laugh, his kindness, his- well everything about him, but he isn’t in love with him. Love is something deeper, something extraordinary, something that needs time to build and grow.

He doesn’t love Louis.

Not yet.

“Everything you do is in some way related to Louis,” Liam said, his voice soft, a smile playing at his lips when Harry turns to look at him, “like, we’re here as a band. We do everything together, but you, I don’t know, you do most of it because Louis wants to. Like today, waking up early and going to the beach? I know you were up too late to be up so early.”

Harry gapes at Liam for a few seconds, trying to figure out a way to answer, to shift the topic to Liam and Zayn, trying to figure out how Liam could have figured everything out, and why he would just lay it on Harry like this.

In the middle of the day, with no preparation.

“I-”, he wets his lips, looks out at the sea again, looks out at Louis, nods to himself, “I like to make him happy.”

When he looks back at Liam again, he’s just watching him with soft eyes.

“You know, Harry, I think that Louis likes to make you happy too,” he laughs a bit, “even if you don’t know it’ll make you happy. Like spending the day at the beach on only five hours sleep.”

Harry doesn’t know what to answer to that, just smiles, maybe he blushes - Liam doesn’t comment on it, and he’s never gonna admit to it. Because yeah, Harry was a bit tired when he woke up, maybe this wasn’t what he had planned, but he’s pretty happy. Content. To sit and watch.

“Yeah, guess we know each other pretty well by now.”

Liam probably would have said something, he always knows what to say, but a small cry from the ocean pulls away both their attention from their awkward, stilted conversation about feelings and what ifs.

Harry surges up, almost dizzy from how quickly he stood up, because he’s never heard that noise before, never wants to hear it again, but he’d recognise it anywhere nonetheless he thinks.

Louis.

“You alright, Lou?”, he yells out while running down the beach to where Zayn and Niall is helping him out of the water.

Louis immediately looks up at him, his face a little too blank like he’s trying to keep everything in, and Harry hates it, hated Louis keeping silent in those first few days, hates Louis being silent now.

He thinks idly, he’d hate Louis being silent at all times.

Louis is loud, Louis is bright, should never be contained or dimmed.

He slows his steps as he gets closer and closer to the others, takes over Niall’s place at Louis’ side without saying anything or Niall asking why. Holds Louis close with an arm around his waist.

“Lou, you okay?”, he asks again, “where does it hurt?”

When Louis doesn’t answer him, he looks desperately to Zayn.

He’s never really felt fear quite like this before. He’s felt fear of being outed, of his friends finding out who he’d wanted to love. He’s felt fear of inadequacy, of having to return disgraced to his hometown, return to small people with small minds.

He’s never before felt this fear mixed with protectiveness, wanting to do anything to take Louis’ pain away. This irrational fear of Louis not being okay, of not being able to think without confirmation that he’s gonna _be_ okay.

“It’s his foot, I think,” Zayn says, nodding down at the red and swollen foot, and Harry’s grip on Louis tightens.

Liam and Niall are already calling out to producers to please call someone, hurry, it’s a bit of an emergency, while Harry and Zayn are helping Louis hobble over the sand.

Harry’s hand is firm around Louis’ wrist, his waist, and he’s mumbling soft words in Louis’ ear, to try and bring him out of his shell again, to soothe, calm.

“You’ll be alright,” he says, and Louis turns his head to, finally, look at him.

“What if I’m not?”, he whispers, a worry meant, Harry thinks, for Harry’s ears only. “What if you’ll have to sing without me?”

The fear that’s been grasping his heart gets tighter, and he feels a little breathless. Not at the thought that they may not succeed without Louis, more of the knowledge they won’t succeed without Louis. Plain and simple, their voices blend well together, but Louis gives them depth. Gives their choruses soul.

Without Louis, they’d be out of here and on a plane back to England in about 0.5 seconds.

They’re all phenomenal singers, and they all know it because they tell each other every day. Even when a producer makes a comment about something, they tell each other ‘you’re brilliant, mate, wouldn’t be here without you’ because it’s _true_ , and no one will ever make them feel inadequate.

He tightens his grip on Louis, “you will be, you’ll be just fine, and we’ll smash it. I can feel it.”

And Louis smiles at him, and at the sight, Harry thinks, that they might just be alright. Whatever happens.

“It doesn’t sound right,” Liam says as they try to practice their chosen song.

Torn. What irony, Harry thinks, without Louis, the band really is torn.

“It’s not thick enough,” Harry agrees, sullen, heartbroken, because they might fine at the end, but in this competition? Without Louis? They’re done for. And they might not have _known_ it before, but they sure do now.

And he can see the fear in the others’ eyes at the thought of their chances, their dreams, rely on whether Louis will be able to get back in time.

“What will we do?”, Zayn asks, timidly, and it sounds foreign, that tone, that insecurity, the fear, “if he doesn’t make it?”

Harry looks to Liam, because he’s the eldest now, the most mature, he’s done this stage before, but, one look is all it takes to realise. Liam doesn’t have a clue. He doesn’t know what they should do, because he’s done this before, he’s done this part before, but he hasn’t succeeded. This is where he failed last time, and this is what all his insecurities comes back to, and Harry looks to Niall.

Niall who’s always optimistic, always has a kind word, always has an encouraging hug to give out. Niall who knows how to read people and has come to the same conclusion as Harry.

“We’ll make do,” he says, and Harry smiles, “semper gumpy and all that. We’re one man down, but we’re good. We’re amazing, we’re not down for the count.”

The cameras want drama, they want suspense, to show the audience at home. They surely won’t show this, show them figuring it out, finding the confidence to do this despite everything.

The odds, he thinks, are probably very seldomly going to be in their favour anyhow, they might as well be used to beating them from the beginning.

“Let’s take it from the top, lads,” he encourages, and Liam looks at him with a glimmer of hope, “if Louis doesn’t make it, we’ll just have to give it all we’ve got.”

And it might not be the best odds, and they might not have high hopes, but they’re together in this, and they’ll overcome the obstacles. Together, like a band, like brothers, all for one and one for all.

Their voices aren't as full as they usually are when they blend together, because Louis' voices give their voices a certain depth that's so unique and can't be replicated.

But they can't give up, just like this, and they all know Louis wouldn't have let one of the others being stuck in a hospital stop him. They're just gonna have to do this for him if he doesn't make it back, they've worked too hard and too long for them to sit down on a bench, accepting defeat.

So when the song ends, they take it from the top again, and when Liam once again tells them, "this isn't thick enough. We need Louis", they do it again. They change it up, they try and make it better, thicker, tries to explore their voices in a way that can give them - not the same sound as when Louis is there, but a new sound that'll have to do.

It's not a One Direction sound, it's not as good, but Louis'd be proud of them, and that's the most important thing. 

"You know," Niall says with a laugh, "that while we're trying to sing like everything from a goddamn fairy princess to an old man, he's being a little shit trying to get the doctors to let him out."

And they laugh, and it's good. It feels almost like this isn't a make it or break it challenge, but rather another good natured practice day.

"He'll make it, though," Zayn states, from his place under a palm tree, "he'll make it and we're gonna make Simon Cowell cream his pants from how good we're singing."

Harry can't really be held accountable for the squeaking laugh, that only Louis has been able to procure before (Zayn looks very smug), that's ripped from his throat at that.

Niall's laughing too, trying to get a cross statement out in between his giggles, "you're gonna have to calm it, Zee, Harry'll rip his vocal chords like that."

They might have been ready to do it alone, face the monster under the bed that is Simon Cowell, but Harry thinks he's never felt so relieved, like so much weight has been taken off his shoulders as when they get the call that they should better get out and receive someone out front.

It's harder to figure out what's more competitive, a 100 meter race at the Olympics, or the boys trying to get to Louis as the first.

Harry thinks the latter might be a prize, motivation, yards better than some cold gold trinket.  
Getting to embrace Louis, lift him, the relief and the happiness he's feeling, he can think of no better euphoria than that moment. the boys are all laughing, and though he hides it well, 

Harry can see the touched expression on Louis' face as he's slowly realising that his boys came running _to_ him _for_ him. They're in this together, and they may have been ready to do it without him if need be, but there's no world where any of them would choose willingly to go on without one.

Pirate code may be those who fall behind, get left behind - One Direction code is no one gets left behind, they're doing this together or not at all.

"Lads," Louis's laughing, his arm tight around Harry, "have ya missed us?"

And Harry thinks Liam might have punched Louis if he hadn't been so happy to see the guy, and Harry might have joined him to be quite honest, but as it is - Louis' weight against him is just too comforting, so Harry settles for pinching his cheek and then, in the heat of the moment, gives the same cheek a consoling kiss.

When he looks away, slowly (and then all at once) horribly realising what he's done, he almost turns around to tell Louis that wow, he really lost his head for a moment there and wow, what a mistake (it wasn't), and wow, could Louis believe he did that, oh the cheek of him - before that happens, Niall smiles beautifically at him, pride shining in his eyes like he's been waiting for Harry to do just that, and when he looks at Louis again, he doesn't look angry. More mesmerised. Mesmerised by Harry.

And that's, that's not the worst case scenario, definitely not, not at all.

Not the best case scenario either, if he's completely honest, because that involves a bit more kissing and none of the others boys present.

Like, ideally.

But this is good too, it's really good.

"Well, think I got my answer," Louis laughs, one arm stretching out, Zayn running to catch it and throw it over his shoulder, "let's go charm Simon Cowell's pants off."

While Niall snickers, Harry thinks that maybe he should take a good talk with Niall, Zayn and Louis about their metaphors for success, and an extra talk with Louis about how there's so many other people Louis could and have charmed the pants off of - mainly focusing on Harry being one of those people.

It's not perfect, they've been practising so much and Louis' wobbling on his hurt foot, but they smash it.

They make Simon Cowell cream his pants and then charm them off, as Niall says and Louis high fives him.

Harry just inches closer to Liam and Zayn (he only made the joke once and didn't laugh at Louis', he's forgiven), despite being an obvious third wheel to the awkward yet smooth flirting going on between them, because even just among them, he doesn't want to be associated with those jokes.

Childish is what they are, he decides, and feels very mature. He's gonna let Louis and Niall be children in their corner, and instead try and have a grown up conversation with Zayn and Liam - right now, they're talking about superheroes.

As he said, maturity en masse.

He might also be convinced to give Louis another chance when he comes to sit beside Harry (by dragging himself across the sofa, looking more like a drowning whale trying to get back to the water more than anything), throw his arms around him, and burying his head in Harry's neck.

"Was a bit scared, y'know," Louis whispers, insecurities meant for Harry's ears only, and Harry's hand, out of pure reflex, goes to circle one of Louis' wrists, his thumb caressing the other's hand. "Thought you'd realise you didn't need me anymore."

Harry immediately goes to hug him, arms squeezing Louis against him, "never." And his voice is intense, leaves no room for argument. "Never would we ever not need you, Louis. You bring our voices together."

Louis doesn't answer, but he rarely does. He hates telling Harry about his insecurities, says that Harry's the youngest, he carries too much already, everything's changed so much and so early for him. He doesn't need any more worries - and he very rarely strays from that principle, despite how much Harry tries to convince him otherwise. That he wants to hear everything, wants to carry Louis' problems and let Louis carry his.

But when Louis does speak up about what goes on inside him, he rarely knows what to say to rationalise his fears, his doubts. For him, the struggle, Harry thinks, isn't in just talking about it, it's in dwelling on his problems. Louis's never really done that, not with anyone but his mum. Talked about his problems more than just in passing.

It's something Harry wants to change, he wants to be able to tell Louis what he's struggling with _knowing_ Louis'll come to Harry with his own struggles. 

But for now, he'll tell Louis all the reasons for why he doesn't need to have any of those thoughts.

No one is unimportant, they made it together, they were made a group together, they'll stick together and win together. Or they'll lose together. Whatever comes.

He smiles into Louis' shoulder, whispers, "we'd get nowhere without you. We need you."

And Louis' arms around his neck tighten a bit.

"I'm glad I have you, Harry."

He might blush a little, but it's all good, no one can see it with his head pressed into Louis' hair.

"The sky is pink," Niall says, off handedly, like he's used to the sky being pink in the middle of the day.

Harry almost gets whiplash from looking up to see if it's true.

And it is.

He's willing to bet their place in the live shows that it fits the pink on his cheeks to a tee.

"It's beautiful," breathes Louis, his eyes sparkling when Harry looks down, and it's so beautiful on him that Harry almost says 'I'll make it stay like that forever if you want me to'. 

He doesn't though.

Him and Louis aren't anything but friends.

Yet.

"It's weird is what it is," states Zayn from the corner where he and Liam are laying, "it's about four pm, why's it pink?"

He seems genuinely like he's two seconds from running to the kitchen to grab the tinfoil and then have Liam help him folding some hats for all five of them, before checking the fields for circles and then descending into their non-existent bunker.

None of them answers because no, it's not normal that it's pink outside because a pink sky usually only happens when it's sunset or sunrise, but the sun's shining well and strong, and is not even close to even contemplating setting yet.

"Let's just ignore the weirdness and enjoy the colour, eh lads?", Louis tries, and there's something in the way he says it, his voice, that has Zayn close his mouth and slumb relaxed back into the couch.

"You're right," Zayn finally says, "it's just the colour of the sky."

Harry looks back at him quickly, brows pinched, because usually Zayn would follow up with something about the physics of it and how it doesn't make sense. He's never quite done it with the colour of the sky, but mainly when Louis tries to cheat in mayer by turning the dice from one eye to six eyes.

He figures, though, that he's lucky Louis could talk Zayn down, because, well, it's hard to connect the sky being weird to Harry of all people but still. It's been happening to the boys, them seeing weird colours in the sky and the weather changing to their liking a little too often, for them to not catch on at some point.

He's gonna have to control it better.

"Oh look," Niall says, "the sky's turning purple and blue now."

A lot better.

Living with his boys for real in big London, away from little Holmes Chapel, away from the school yards where homophobic slurs were thrown around like they meant nothing, is something Harry has only ever dreamed of.

As he lays in bed, can look over to Louis' bed, only has to crane his neck to see the rest of his boys, he thinks of the little boy who put on nail polish and had to lie about it to be accepted by his friends.

He thinks of the crush he had on his best friend, about how guilty he felt for thinking like that about another boy, and he thinks of the day he got told Tommy and Alex had been beat up for being brave enough to kiss in broad daylight, had been brave enough to be happy and proud and not back down, and he thinks that the little boy was braver than he'll ever be again. He might not have told anyone of what he felt, he might have lied about the pastel pink on his nails, but he never got mean, he never gave in to the hatred, he never gave up dreaming.

One day, he vows, he'll be on stage somewhere, and the stars around him will be lights from the crowd, and he'll be able to say to that little boy, and all other little children around the world, that there's nothing wrong with them, and that however hard today is - there is tomorrow, and they'll find their way in life.

"What are you thinking about, Harry?"

He startles a bit, looks from the bottom of the bunk above him, to where Louis is lying in bed, reading a Shakespearean play. He does that a lot, reads for fun, and complex texts too. If it wasn't because the lad culture was so ingrained in both him and Louis, he'd probably tell him how impressed he is.

As it is, though, just him not mentioning it at all, is pretty much the act of an angel in the _lad culture_.

"Not much," he says, shrugs a bit, "the past, the future, the state of the world, armageddon, you know, light stuff."

Louis laughs and puts his book down - Antonius and Cleopatra, a sad one - in order to properly focus on Harry.

He likes when that happens. Him getting Louis' full attention.

"So, Socrates," he smiles, "found any answers to the mystery of the human life?"

He shakes his head, a smile spreading across his lips, "nah, mostly just thinking of how good life is right now."

Louis nods from his side of the room. "Yeah, we're pretty lucky, aren't we? Could be anywhere, but we're here."

"Long way from the toilets, that's for sure," and he doesn't quite know why that makes him a bit nervous. To think about that. How they met.

How Louis didn't call him again.

"Yeah, can you believe," Louis' eyes are sparkling, and Harry can't look away, "that this journey, when we tell it again, will have started with you peeing on me?"

He flushes bright red, and is lucky that Louis is looking away from the window because the sky, the traitor, follows suit. Red, red, red, red, red like blood, red like love.

"It was an honest mistake!", he can't help but whine, throwing an arm over his face, trying to hide the pink colour on his cheeks. 

"Oh, an honest mistake?", and he sounds so smug, like he struck gold for the first time, and 

Harry looks over at him with a looming sense of dread. 

"Yeah," he croaks, "honest mistake." 

"I gotta tell you though," Louis says with a fake lightness, "I haven't had many a gentlemen piss on me in my days, I'd go as far as to say you're the first." 

Harry looks guiltily at the reddened sky, "oh well, you struck gold." 

He doesn't think he's ever seen Louis lose it like that so quickly. He's normally very stoic, knows how to keep his laughter in for so long it makes Harry shuffle in his seat under the harsh judgement of his joke. 

"Mate," Louis gets out between the laughter, "you surprise me every day." 

And it may be because Louis has had him charmed since the start, but it makes something in Harry's stomach tingle. The fact that Harry, simple Harry, can be of continuous interest to Louis Tomlinson. 

"What can I say," Harry nonchalantly offers, "I'm a man of depth." 

Louis snorts and goes to pick up his book, "a man of depth, you're such a loser." 

Normally Harry would take an affront to that, but he supposes, this once he'll let it slide. 

A minute later, he steals another look at Louis who's staring out the window in awe. 

Sky beginning to turn from red to blue, blue like Louis' eyes. 

Their first performance, their first time on stage in front of a crowd together as a band, as a unit, completely blows him away. He thinks, if he could look outside, the stars on the sky outside might be blinking like fireworks. He’s not quite sure how he’s feeling, nervous or excited or stressed or happy, or maybe just all at once.

“That, lads,” Niall exclaims as they got out back, the night air cooling them down from the extreme heat in the studio, “was fucking insane. We did it!”

They’re all just looking at each other, smiling, as if in a daze, not quite realising that yes, they’ve done it. They performed at the live shows for the first time, they’re in the game now, and their dream of succeeding is within reach. Closer than it’s ever been before, at least.

“I’m proud of you, lads,” Zayn says, smiles at them, turning even more fond when he looks at Liam, “you were brilliant out there, Li.”

For some reason, it’s said in the same tone as Harry would say darling.

For an even stranger reason, he feels a bit sad that Louis didn’t compliment him in the same tone.

“Can you be in love with someone you aren’t in a relationship with?”

Liam looks up from his phone, eyes confused and inquiring. “Why?”

Harry shrugs a bit, doesn’t know how to properly put it into words. This feeling he gets whenever Louis is near.

How the sky always changes when he compliments him, when he looks into those ocean blue eyes.

“I don’t know,” he says, and Liam looks at him like he’s biggest bafoon in the world. “Asking for a friend, I guess.”

A laughter erupts from Liam, and he looks absolutely delighted. “A friend, you say?”

Harry nods resolutely, a friend. It’s for a friend. He has loads of friends. They’ll one day become infatuated with someone, and they’ll ask him this question, and Harry will have the answer because Liam always knows best. 

It’s for a friend.

And a bit for himself.

Just a tiny bit.

“A friend,” Harry confirms. “Just a friend.”

For now.

Liam sighs, “well, I guess, it depends on what your friend’s relationship with the person is.”

“They’re really good friends, and he thinks of his friend as one of the funniest people there is, one of the most talented, the kindest person he knows,” he immediately answers, doesn’t even need to think about it, “one of the fittest too, to be honest. Chestnut hair, beautiful eyes, a body to die for. He think the world of them, and I really want… I mean, he really wants to know if he can be in love or just has a stupid crush.”

Harry’s ears are all red when he gets to the end, hands immediately going to play with his hair, trying to get attention away from his ears and rosy cheeks. Without even looking out, he knows the sky’s all pink, if not red even. 

When he looks over at Liam, the other is smiling softly, not looking like he’s judging him at all. And Harry knew he wouldn’t of course, knows Liam and Zayn has got something going on, or knows they’re at least hoping to have something at some point. He does envy them a bit, their open affection for each other, knowing where they stand. It’s plain as day.

He wants that with Louis.

But more.

He wants so, so much with Louis. He wants forever, he thinks. Even if that’s naive, nothing lasts that long, especially not love, this country’s divorce rates being almost at fifty percent, but, he thinks, there’s nothing wrong with being a little naive. When it comes to love, you need to be hopeful, you need to be able to picture forever and still see that person next to you.

“Well, Harry,” Liam starts, smile still firmly in place, “I think you should tell your friend that if he feels the connection, the affection deeply enough, it’s not a crush. If he looks at other people and none of them measure up to Lou- to his friend, then it’s not just a crush.”

Harry nods because yeah, that’s what he thinks too.

“I don’t think he can be in love, if they’re not in a relationship. I think he can definitely be infatuated, feel love for the person his friend is, but without having ever experienced the other in a relationship, I don’t think it can be love like that.”

Harry looks up, brows pinched. “What do you mean?”

“I’m saying that to fall in love with a person for real, I think you need to be in a relationship. You can definitely be in love with the idea of you in a relationship with them, but how can you let yourself fall so deeply and completely as real love requires,, if you don’t know if they feel the same?”

He nods along. “So really, it’s all about courage?”

Liam shrugs, head going from side to side as he mulls it over, “yeah, you could say that, I suppose. Courage, hopefulness, naivety. Personally I wouldn’t want to be in love if I wasn’t sure my love would be returned. Normal feelings being unrequited, that hurts, but you’ll get over it. Love, that’s deep. Love comes from your heart. It isn’t something that’ll ever go away, not really.”

“So you think it’s subconscious? Our hearts, brains, not letting us fall too hard unless we’re sure it’s for real?”

Liam smiles, leaning back on the couch. It’s very endearing. “It’s human instinct, I suppose. To shield yourself from danger.”

Danger. Danger of heartbreak, danger of rejection, danger of a ruined friendship.  
Danger.

“Do you think,” one breath, one breath out, calm down, “that my friend should be worried about that? His heart being in danger?”

He doesn’t look up at Liam, but he can hear the soft pattering of rain, of the sky sharing his worries, trying to comfort him, the only way it knows how. By letting him express his feelings, and giving him something soft and comforting to focus on. Instead of the whirling mess that is his mind and his feelings since he met Louis in that damn toilet.

“I don’t know your friend, Harry,” Liam reminds him gently, “but I do know you, and I know Louis, and I don’t think there’s anything to be scared of than what you should always be a little scared of when it comes to love. Falling together without fear.”

Harry’s eyes snap up at that, his mouth hanging a little open, his heart pumping a little too fast at the mere _implication_ of what Liam is saying without saying.

“Do you really-”

Liam tilts his head a bit, eyes gentle, looking every inch the dad he’s appointed himself to be to their band of misfits.

“Yeah H, I do.”

And that’s that. 

And it’s really- liberating. To know that Harry hasn’t jumped ten feet ahead of everyone else, that he isn’t reading everything Louis’ been giving him since the beginning all wrong.

Outside the rain has stopped, and he’s pretty sure the sun is shining oh so bright, feels like something inside him is lighting up like a beacon.

“Thank you,” he whispers hoarsely, “thank you so much, Liam.”

Liam looks at him, a bit searching, brows furrowed a bit, before he reaches over on the couch.

“Are you okay, Haz?”

His tone isn’t worried, not quite, but there’s obviously something in Harry’s expression that’s warranted some kind of concern in Liam. Because that’s who Liam is, he picks up on the small changes in people’s expressions, sees when they’re not quite feeling right, and asks about it. Doesn’t press but lets people know, he’s there for them, to listen, to give advice, to care.

He thinks Liam might be one of the best persons in the world.

He nods. “Yeah, I’m just-”

Relieved. Relieved that Louis perhaps, maybe, most certainly feels the same about him that he does about Louis. Relieved that he’s not falling love without reason, giving himself up for heartbreak without cause. Relieved that Liam wants to help Harry, wants to give him his happy ending. Relieved Liam doesn’t hate him. Relieved that he isn’t getting judged.

Relieved that he isn’t getting told off for who he is. Relieved he isn’t being punched and beaten like Tommy and Alex were.

Relieved Liam, his friends, all of them, loves him, all of him, quirks, sexuality - all of it.

Relieved he’s so incredibly lucky.

“I’m just,” he swallows, “happy.”

Liam smiles, nods. “Harry, if you ever need it. I’m here for you, always will be.”

He accepts the offer with a shaky smile and nod. “Thank you, thank you, really. Liam, thank you.”

He can’t really say thank you enough. For making him feel at ease with his feelings, for making him feel brave enough to believe Louis could have feelings for him. 

For making him feel a little less like the scared boy he once was, making him feel a bit more like the man he’s gonna become some day.

Unafraid, unashamed; proud.

Liam pulls him against him, his arms heavy and warm around him, and Harry sinks into the embrace, blinking a few beginning tears from his eyes. It feels really nice. Being so openly accepted by his friend.

He knows that Liam isn’t straight either, but it’s still, he thinks, a bit nerve wrecking. Doing it. Putting himself out there, all of him. But that’s being brave, giving yourself to your friends, and getting them in return.

Giving your heart to someone, believing it’s enough for them, trusting them to take care of it.

He wants to be brave. He’s always wanted that. And with friends like the boys, with someone as special as Louis, he thinks he will be one day. If not right now, he will be one day, and that’s enough.

The promise that one day, one day he’ll be brave, he’ll be out and proud, and he’ll let all the small kids trapped in small minded towns know that there’s a tomorrow and it’ll be better than yesterday, and there’s an entire world in front of them, just waiting to be seized.

That the world doesn’t end in whatever little town they’re born in, the world is wide and varieted and beautiful, and there’s a space out there just for them where they’ll be happy and loved for all their special qualities that make them _them_

“I’m glad you’re here, Liam,” he whispers into the other’s neck, “you take care of us, ‘s nice talking about this.”

He can feel Liam’s smile against his shoulder, feel his mouth move when he answers, “you’re welcome. Haz. Just say the word and I’ll be there to help you get your prince.”

It feels good being able to laugh about, feeling carefree about it, his feelings. Feelings he always hoped he’d one day be able to feel and be accepted by all those he holds dear.

It feels, yeah, it feels pretty extraordinaire.

Walking around after that day feels lighter, there’s a spring in his step, and it’s ridiculous because he’s not even sure that Louis does actually return his feelings, Liam did say he did - but he can’t be sure, no one can be sure until Harry puts down his cards and talks to Louis.

No, the spring in his step, the lightness in his heart, he thinks is because Liam accepted him. Liam helped him. Liam listened to him. Liam didn’t judge him. Liam supported him. And that felt like such a relief, he hadn’t said the words, that he wasn’t straight, that he was gay or whatever he was, but Liam _knew_. Knew about his feelings. Knew about him. As the first, he knew, and he didn’t judge him. He embraced him, told him it was okay, and that he’d ensure Harry got his happy ending.

He thinks that might be one of the most important things someone has ever done for him. People knowing everything and still caring for him just the same is exactly what he’s always wanted, and he’s on his way to getting just that.

Louis and the other boys pick up on his sudden brighter mood, not because he was glum or anything before, but simply because he’s happy all the time. Even after hours of rehearsing, he still feels like he’s glowing. There hasn’t been a day without bright, bright sun since he told Liam, and he’s pretty sure only a catastrophe would make the sun go away.

He’s happy.

Niall asks him what’s up with him, if he’s got something lately - no, if he’s got his eyes on someone - maybe, if it’s someone Niall knows - yes, and then Harry’s practically running to get out of the conversation. Niall would eventually ask for a name, would eventually make him use pronouns, would eventually figure it out, probably already has.

Harry’s been half-way in love with Louis ever since those days spent at his dad’s place.

So he runs off, not because he doesn’t want to tell Niall. He wants to tell Niall about him, about what he feels for Louis, wants to feel that same acceptance, wants to know that Niall cares about him no matter what. Cares about him, not despite of, not because of, just cares about him, still.

He just doesn’t want to tell anyone else before he tells Louis.

Louis has quickly become one of the most important persons in his life, not because Harry has feelings for him, though that does play a part, but because he’s bright. Bright like the sun, lighting up every room he goes into, lights up Harry’s entire life with his humour, his quick wit, his kindness, his warmth, his ability to make Harry smile even when he’s dead on his feet.

Because he’s Louis, and Harry doesn’t think there’d ever be a universe where Louis isn’t in his life, isn’t there to help him, isn’t there to guide him in some way.

They’re not together, but Louis is easily one of the most influential persons in his life, and everything good in the world, he sees in Louis. He loves Louis, plain and simple, wants him around always.

He thinks back on his conversation with Liam, and he thinks that the way he loves Louis is not quite romantical love, because Liam’s right - Harry doesn’t know how Louis is in a romantic context. He hasn’t experienced Louis while he’s allowed to kiss him, he hasn’t experienced Louis while he’s allowed to hold his hands and slot their fingers together. He hasn’t experienced Louis while Louis knows about Harry’s feelings.

But he does love Louis because he _knows_ Louis, he knows his quirks, his weird habits, the way he takes his tea and refuses to try something new. The way he looks when he’s waking up, when he’s tired and rubs his eyes to get the sleep out. The way he laughs when he’s surprised, when he’s too delighted for words, when Liam cracks a stupid joke, when Harry does something dumb. Harry knows Louis, knows how it is to have Louis’ friendship, have him in his life.

He knows Louis, and he knows just how much he has to lose if Louis doesn’t share his feelings and can’t get over Harry feeling them. He doesn’t know exactly how much it would hurt, but imagining Louis pulling away from him, flinching whenever Harry gets close, not laughing at his stupid puns or clumsy nature - hurts more than anything ever has. More than the ache in his chest when the boys back home made a homophobic comment, called someone a slur, more than the ache when he found out he wasn’t normal.

More than Louis never texting back after that first meeting.

He has so much to lose, but thinking about what he could gain? Makes all the difference. Thinking about kissing Louis, holding his hand, wiping away the tears, shoulder his burdens for him and have Louis shoulder his, supporting him, being held by him and feeling safe, taking care of him, _loving_ him.

There really is no dilemma, not in Harry’s mind.

It’s scary, and he’s not sure he’s a brave person, but he’d like to be.

For Louis, he thinks he could be.

Telling Louis is what’s at the forefront of his mind because it’s not just something you do. Go to the brightest, kindest, sweetest person you know, your best friend, and tell him casually that you have feelings for him. That when you look into the future, the future you hope for, even if it’s naive and childish - all you see, really, is him. Him and you, together. You just don’t do that. One, because he might reject you, and your friendship could be ruined, even if he did try and be nice about it, because that’s Louis to you, he would try and make you feel good about yourself while also withdrawing to not give you false hopes. Two, because Louis, Louis is special, he deserves to be treated like the treasure he is, he deserves that extra effort from the start.

Problem is, Harry’s never told anyone in his life about his feelings. He doesn’t know where to start.

It’s after a show, when they’ve come off the scene, sweaty and panting, and they’re looking at each other with bright eyes because they did it, they smashed it. They sounded amazing, and Louis immediately grabs Harry, sweaty as he is, and throws his arms around his waist. Harry’s arms naturally circle around his neck, holding him close, hiding his face against Louis’ shoulder.

“We did it,” Louis whispers, not motioning to let go, and Harry sure as shit isn’t going to do anything to make him do that.

Harry nods, smiling against his shoulder, feeling all the adrenaline leaving his body slowly, but not leaving him drained. Content, content because he’s in Louis’ arms, and they all smashed it. They made an amazing performance, and Louis is holding him so close, rubbing his thumbs into Harry’s back, keeping him steady, anchored.

“I know,” he whispers, closing his eyes, reveling in the feeling, “you were fucking amazing.”

Louis doesn’t answer immediately but Harry can feel his smile against his shoulder, his lips curving up, his teeth lightly sinking into Harry’s skin, and he wants to lean into the touch. Get as much of Louis as he can before he eventually lets go.

“Thank you, Haz,” and his voice isn’t more than a whisper, almost like he’s too choked up to say it any louder, or too surprised, and Harry doesn’t like either of those options. He wants Louis to always know how important, talented, amazing he is, Harry will be there always to remind him but he wants Louis to tell it to himself.

He tightens his grip around Louis’ neck, trying to convey everything he’s feeling, the love, the feelings he has for him, the pride in and absolute awe he has of him and his singing, how he deserves the best and deserves to think only the best of himself. He doesn’t know if Louis can feel it, can understand the overwhelming amount of things he wants to convey, wants Louis to understand, wants to be brave enough to tell him, but Louis does bury his face a bit more into Harry’s shoulder and he does tighten a bit around him, and that’s fine too. That’s enough, it’ll have to be.

For now.

But when they part, are being told to part, because they need to get a move on. They need to get ready for interviews, they need to get ready for being told who’s through and who’s not, and they’re needed everywhere, and it hurts a bit to let go because where Harry needs to be right now is here with Louis. Telling him all the infinite ways Louis is amazing so that he believes it.

Telling him how he feels.

Liam throws him a little look as they scurries off, pointed stare at Louis’ back, the way Louis took Harry’s hand like it was second hand nature, to lead him, his grip light and _there_ more than anything. Harry can only look at Liam with a little shrug that Liam answers with a smile.

Maybe it’s his hopeful mind, his foolish heart, but he doesn’t think he’s imagining the way Louis’ fingers curl a little tighter around Harry’s, pulling him a little quicker along.

Harry goes where Louis goes, that’s never been a question, and if Louis wants to go a little faster, Harry doesn’t mind getting pulled along.

He looks back briefly at Liam who’s falling a bit behind, but judging from the proud smile he’s flashing Harry, he doesn’t seem too bothered about Louis’ new tempo. He’s really lucky to have Liam, Liam who gets that Harry’s scared, because Liam’s scared too.

Because they both have found their person, a wonderful and kind and extraordinaire person who’ve become so important to them in so little time that feels like ages, and they both have so much at stake if they come clean. If they tell the other about their feelings. Or well, Liam hasn’t exactly admitted to Harry his feelings for Zayn, and normally Harry wouldn’t presume, because presuming gets people hurt more often than not, but Harry’s seen the way Liam looks at Zayn. Recognizes it all too well because that’s how he looks at Louis.

He’s pretty sure anyway. The amount of fondness and adoration is so clear and palpable in Liam’s brown eyes, and what he feels inside of him as he looks at Louis, it feels, looks, the same.

Liam smiles at him before making a shoo-movement with his hand, and Harry immediately, doesn’t need to be told twice - embarrassing he even had to be told once, turns back to Louis.

Louis who’s looking at him with a weird little, closed off expression that only brightens a bit when Harry smiles at him, and that’s even more weird. Louis isn’t closed off. Louis isn’t closed off _to Harry_. 

It’s a weird feeling, and he doesn’t know how to handle it because it’s the first time he’s ever felt like this in Louis’ company: that feeling of not being adequate, of having done something wrong, of not _being right_. And he knows Louis would never want him to feel like that, but there’s that nagging thought in him that asks: do you really know that?

And he hates it, he hates that so little is needed for his belief in their friendship to rock because it’s not fair to Louis. Everyone’s allowed their off days, everyone’s allowed to keep their feelings to themselves, you can’t be positive twenty-four-seven, and that’s alright. So he hates himself a bit for having unconsciously expected it of Louis, but this is new. Louis shutting him out is new, and he doesn’t know how to react without blaming himself for it.

He was always so scared of that growing up, him revealing himself and getting judged, getting shut out, but Louis doesn’t know, he hasn’t told Louis anything, and if Louis figured it out and decided to hate him. He doesn’t know what he’d do. He’s aware his brain is running ahead, that he doesn’t know why Louis is being weird, if it has something to do with him, and there’s not even the slightest of proofs to why Louis would know about Harry’s crush, or his not hetersexual sexuality. 

But it’s hard keeping his mind reigned in. It’s hard being logical.

So he loosens his hold on Louis’ fingers a bit in order to grab his hand, squeezes it tight, a little desperately, a little hopefully, and the weird glint in Louis’ eyes fade a bit. Harry can’t look away, holds Louis’ hand tightly, until the last bit of closed offness in Louis’ face has disappeared.

Until Louis is smiling, and Harry feels lighter inside, feels like all the dark thoughts, the panic, has been quelled, has been banished from his mind, and Harry’s smile widens, and for a moment, they’re just staring at each other, walking slower - Liam even walks past them, until they stand still.

Still just smiling at each other.

Louis’ smile turns a bit softer, and he lifts one hand to card through Harry’s curls. He pushes back against the touch, feels a bit like a kitten, but he loves having his curls touched, and he loves when Louis touches him, and he can’t help but crave moremoremore. He always wants more of what Louis wants to give him.

“You know,” Louis said softly, breaking the silence, but not in a way that feels like it ruins the mood, “if you wanted to hold my hand, all you had to do was say the word.”

And it’s not the right place for this conversation, there’s so much going on around them, people running everywhere, pushing past them, reminding them they need to go somewhere, they need to prepare, they need to do this and that, but looking into Louis’ eyes, it doesn’t feel like there’s any rush to be anywhere else in the world.

He looks down on their hands, and answers, just as quietly, as softly, “the word.”

Louis breathes a little laugh, and when he looks up, Louis’ eyes are so soft that they make Harry torn between getting teary eyed, because this expression he has only seen when Louis talks to or about his family, and blushing tomato red, because Louis looking at him like this isn’t something he’s trained himself to be able to take.

In the end, he does both, he thinks.

“Come on.” 

Louis drags them towards the room the others are in, but Harry doesn’t look away from Louis. Trusting him to guide him there.

Louis like this, soft and open, is beautiful.

Louis like this, no matter if it’s gonna break his heart, he thinks he’ll fall in love with.

“I need to tell him,” he begins, and Liam looks up, eyes confused for a second before clearing up, smile bright.

“You do.”

Nothing more, nothing less, not an ‘about time’ because Liam knows, probably better than anyone, that even if you know that you feel something strongly for someone, you can’t tell them. There’s no rush in telling them, there’s no need pressuring oneself into telling them.

“You need to tell him too,” Harry points out.

“I do,” accepts Liam, and then there’s a blush spreading, and Harry gapes a bit.

“Unless,” and now he’s full on smiling, “unless you, Liam Payne, have been a sly dog, and already told him!”

Liam shakes his head, smiling. “I haven’t told him.”

Harry squints suspiciously, sure that Liam’s hiding something, and then Liam’s cheeks redden more, and Harry almost wants to pinch them. They look adorable. Like two small apples.

“I, I ehm,” he laughs a bit shakily, scratches his neck, “I agreed with him.”

Harry gapes, and then lets out a surprised, an overjoyed laugh. “He told you!”

When he runs to embrace Liam, he doesn’t think about anything but how absolutely overjoyed he is for them, how much they deserve to be happy, how Zayn always looks a bit more at ease on stage when he’s doing their choreographed moves when he can look over at Liam, and how Liam always smiles a bit brighter, stands a bit taller, prouder, when Zayn backs him up.

He holds Liam close, whispers words of pride, encouragement, and he can’t stop smiling, and Liam whispers that Harry’s probably more excited than Liam himself is, but he lets Harry hold him, and he thinks that Liam’s just trying to act a little tough.

Everyone needs a good hug once in a while.

Harry needs a hug from Louis all the time.

“Thank you, Harry,” Liam says with a smile, “now what’s your plan for Louis?”

“Wait and see. Wait and see.”

Being naturally clumsy, he’s actually so very proud of himself for being able to sneak up on Katie, another contestant, put an arm around her shoulders and present her with a rose, without her noticing him at all, leading her to let out a shriek that almost makes him break his facade.

“Would you go on a date with me, if I gave you this rose like this?”, he asks, paying no further attention to her shocked and confused expression.

“Harry, what the hell?” she exclaims, looking at him a bit like he’s gone absolutely mental from when she said good morning to him just seven hours ago.

“Would you go on a date with me, if I gave you this rose like this?” he repeats, still keeping a hopeful face, but waving the rose a little to get her back on track.

She still looks at him like he’s absolutely insane, until he begins to fidget under her gaze, and when he’s about to say something lame about how it’s not actually for her, he just needs some constructive criticism about the way he did it, and whether Louis would be surprised and excited, surprised and scared, or just weirded out. That this is his best idea, but he’s thought about using a sunflower because Louis is bright like the sun, and the sun always shines that much brighter when Harry looks at him, but Katie just smiles at him, relaxed and bright-eyed.

“Yeah Harry, I’d absolutely love to go on a date with you,” she tells him and claps the hand holding the rose.

His lips stretch into a big, big smile, and he’s sure the sun must blinding to the people outside. He doesn’t know the first thing about dating, other than the fact that he wants to do it with Louis, and he wants to learn everything there is about dating with Louis, and only ever Louis.

“Really?”, he urges her to clarify, “it wasn’t cheesy? Tacky?”

She laughs a bit, shakes her head. “Harry, you’re a cheesy person, but it isn’t a bad thing, not at all. It’s very romantic, very sweet. Louis is gonna love it.”

In that second, he doesn’t really speculate on how she could know, if she accepts him, if she thinks it’s weird, because she’s so happy for him, it’s so blatant, and Harry feels so, so warm, and so, so lucky he’s got such good, good friends. Friends who know him. Friends who accept him.

He gives her a big hug, mindful of the rose, even if he does think he’s gonna get a sunflower instead, and whispers a quiet thank you into her hair. She laughs again, but returns the hug, squeezes him and whispers back that she’s proud of him, that him and Louis are perfect for each other.

He gives her the rose and leaves, mostly because roses aren’t Louis’ thing, and he wants to give Louis the best of the best, and he wants it to be unique, and solely for Louis, and he just wants to do _well_ with this. He really wants it to be perfect.

But also because Katie could see through him, and accepted him. She’s a darling girl, and rose means beauty, and she’s beautiful inside and out.

Louis is a little weird the rest of the day, doesn’t really give it himself when they rehearse, and doesn’t really react when Harry comes up to him to ask what’s wrong. It’s not that Louis seems mad at anyone in particular, just lost.

Like his world’s been turned upside, and he’s lost his footing, his understanding of the very foundation of the world.

Harry doesn’t know how to help, doesn’t know how to make it better.

Niall tells him that there’s nothing he can do, and if Niall seems a little melancholic, not angry, just resigned, then that’s probably just because he’s missing the bubbly, the happy and bright Louis that they all know and love.

Zayn tells him to talk to Louis later, that now isn’t the time, and yes, he’s right about that, but he doesn’t understand. They all act like they know what’s making Louis this upset, this lost, and Harry doesn’t like not knowing what’s going on with his best friend.

With the person he hopes to fall in love with.

Liam tells him that he’s sorry he misunderstood, but that he doesn’t understand what’s going on, and Harry looks at him like he has two heads.

“You don’t understand what?”, Harry inquires, refuses to let him run away like Louis, Zayn and Niall all did when he asked, “what are you so confused about?”

Liam shrugs, looking torn, “I don’t know, I guess I just read our conversations wrong.”

And Harry looks at him like he’s the one to have grown two heads, “what conversations?”

Liam looks a bit put on the spot. “You know, the conversations, those about, you know.”

“How could you possibly misunderstand that?”, and he’s so confused, he feels a bit like Louis, lost, not knowing where he’s going because everything is so weird.

Outside he can hear the wind pick up a bit.

“I just, I just didn’t see it coming,” Liam says, “because you, I got the impression, you were, ehm, gay?”

He looks so uncomfortable, and it’s so foreign to Harry who just shakes his head.

“No, I’m not,” he shrugs, “not really defining myself. Just not straight.”

Liam nods, “okay, okay, yeah, that’s great. That’s brilliant.”

Harry shakes his head a bit, “what are you on about, Liam?”

He looks caught out, his eyes a bit wide, and he shrugs. “I’m not on about anything, you’ve got all my support.”

He knows that, Harry knows that Liam supports him, he’s said it multiple times. Has told him how proud he is. What he doesn’t know is why Liam is so nervous, so cagey, and he doesn’t understand why Louis is like he is, and he doesn’t understand what the other guys are referring to.

He doesn’t understand anything.

“Can you at least tell me what Louis is sad about?”, he pleads, because he doesn’t think Louis will want to talk to him after all this, even if that’s when Niall and Zayn said he should seek out Louis.

With how he acted that night after they’d performed and today, maybe it’s just Louis losing interest in him.

“I think he was just very surprised, very surprised,” Liam seems to weigh his words carefully, “and I think he was just a bit hurt?”

Hurt?

“Hurt?”

The wind picks up a bit more outside, he can hear the trees shaking, can hear it howling, and he’s sure that he looks panicked, and Liam looks so, so torn. Like he wants to comfort Harry, but doesn’t know if he can, if he should, and Harry swears he’s never been so confused.

“Yeah, hurt, and feeling a bit stupid, I guess. He read the signs wrong.”

Signs?

Oh. _Oh_.

“Oh,” Harry whispers, and the wind outside has gone so quiet, everything has gone so so quiet, and he feels like Louis looked. Lost, with no sense of direction. “He liked someone?”

Liam looks at him weirdly now, “how could you not know?”

Harry shrugs, feeling stupid, so so stupid, and he feels a bit like crying, and so does the sky because the wind is being replaced by rain.

Rain, rain, rain. Cleansing rain. Washing away his worries, his tears, hiding his heartbreak from the world.

“I don’t know,” Harry shrugs, “guess I’m just stupid.”

Liam doesn’t say anything, and Harry doesn’t know what he’s still doing here. He’s looking around the practice room, all the colours seemingly washed out, everything grey. It looks like he feels.

Miserable.

He turns to walk out, can’t really stand being inside, wants to get, wants to cry and let the rain hide it, wants to let the sky comfort him like it’s done so many times before, make sure he’s alone out there, that he won’t freeze, that he can just cry, cry, cry, and let the rain wash it away, and then come back in. A new person. A new Harry. Who won’t pester Louis with his stupid crush anymore.

“Though he liked me.”

And then he walks off, doesn’t really listen to whatever Liam’s shouting after him, because he’s been strong for long enough he feels. He let Louis shrug him off. He let Zayn be passive aggressive.

He let Liam break the news that broke his heart.

God. His heart. He should’ve listened to Liam. Don’t let yourself fall for real, don’t let it become more than a crush, when you don’t know if your feelings are returned.

It’s human instinct to turn away from danger, and for Louis, Harry went against all that. He let himself fallfallfall, like Icarus he flew too close to the sun, and now his hubris is being punished.

When he gets outside, he lets the rain envelope him.

It feels like a hug from his mum.

He continues to walk, arms wrapped around himself, clothes getting more and more soaked. He doesn’t want to cry until he’s far away from the building, before he’s sure he’s alone, and can cry away his heart ache. Somewhere they won’t find him before he’s pulled himself together, learned himself to be a Harry not halfway in love with Louis Tomlinson.

He doesn’t know how far he’s walked, all he knows is that it’s getting harder and harder to see where he’s going, but he’s definitely come a fair bit away from the others, and they probably won’t even run after him yet. Right now he’s just a dramatic boy who thought his first real crush was mutual, and it’s on him, he knows, to let himself believe it without having discussed it first.

He looks up at the sky, the rain falling heavier and heavier, and finally he lets his tears fall as well.

The sky is crying for its chosen boy, trying to protect him, shield his tears from prying eyes.

Louis finds him after what could have been an hour, could have been three. He looks so tired, so panicked, and he looks so relieved when he finally gets Harry to look up at him from his sitting position against a wall.

He’s not getting sick, the rain would never hurt him, but he’s tired. So very tired and drained, he just wants to sleep and forget all about what’s happened today. Forget all about his crush on Louis, so they could go back to being friends.

“Harry, Harry, Harry,” Louis’s chanting in his ear, voice so soft, and Harry really might just fall asleep from that alone. Louis’ voice is like a lullaby, calming him down, making him feel safe, home. “You scared me so much.”

Harry just shrugs in response to that because yeah, he might have, but Louis broke his heart without ever saying anything to him, so he’d call it even seven.

Even if it isn’t Louis’ fault that Harry’s naive.

“Harry”, Louis whispers, “Harry, Harry, would you please look at me?”

Harry, actually, doesn’t want to look at Louis. Doesn’t want to see the pity, so he keeps his eyes trained on the sky beside Louis, just so he can see him in the periphery of his eyes, but not Louis’ expression when he inevitably tells Harry that he’s sorry he let Harry believe he had feelings for him, that he still wants to be friends, that he’s flattered more than anything that Harry would have a crush on little ole him. It’d be kind and self-deprecating, and Harry would hate every single word and second of it.

“Look, Harry,” and Louis sighs, and here it comes. The gentle let down. “I’m sorry.”

Harry bites his lips, looks down at the ground again. He’s so stupid, so stupid, so stupid. He really let himself believe, and now he’s gonna get what’s coming for him. He’s such a child.

A naive child.

How could Louis, bright and confident and gentle Louis, ever fall for such a child? Even _think_ about it?

“I’m sorry for being so childish,” he said, and Harry furrowed his brows a bit, but didn’t comment. “I should have talked to you. I shouldn’t have assumed. That wasn’t fair to you, wasn’t fair to anyone. I’m sorry.”

Harry shrugs, doesn’t understand the point of it, so he just answers, “‘s okay” in a hope that Louis will leave him alone with his tears in the rain.

“No, it’s not okay, Haz, it’s not,” Louis repeats, firm on standing his ground, it seems, “and I don’t think you’re getting what I’m trying to say right now, I’m not really that good at improvising.”

That’s bullshit, Harry knows that.

So he tells him, “that’s bullshit, you were a theater kid.”

Louis laughs softly, and it makes Harry’s heart tug, Louis’ laugh is so beautiful, it used to make the sun shine.

“Yeah, I was, but what I improvised then didn’t mean anything, “ Louis puts his hand on Harry’s wrist, not putting any pressure on it, but just keeping his hand there, like a comfort, warm, anchoring him, “this means something. This means so so much, you have to know that. I want to get this right.”

Harry doesn’t say anything, doesn’t look at Louis, but he is very intrigued, he really wants to know where Louis is going with all this. Because it doesn’t sound like the beginning of Louis letting him down gently.

Louis takes a deep breath, and with a shaking voice, he says, “I saw you with Katie the other day. With the rose. She said she’d want to date you, and even though I knew I hadn’t heard it all, she sounded so sincere, and I thought.” He takes another breath, and Harry feels like his heart is gonna jump out of his chest. “I thought it was real. I thought you had feelings for her, and I didn’t understand because you always looked at me like I made your day by being there, and I looked at you the same, and I was so confused.”

Harry looks up at Louis, remembering what Liam said, “and hurt.”

_He_ hurt Louis. He _hurt_ Louis.

Louis nods, slowly, “yeah, and hurt.”

Harry feels like crying, but not like before. But because they’re both a little bit dumb, a little too easy to give up, a little too insecure, and all this could’ve been prevented if they’d spoken together at the beginning.

If only Harry hadn’t waited that extra day. Had trusted the rose to charm Louis without needing to consult Katie.

“I’m sorry for confusing you, Harry,” Louis said softly, “I’m not interested in anyone else, I’m only interested in you, and I thought you wanted something with Katie, and I just. I don’t know, I just panicked, thought I’d fucked up, let myself hope too much. I’m sorry for assuming, for hurting you.”

Oh yeah, he had hurt Harry too.

They’d hurt each other. By being dramatic, by not talking to each other. Lesson hard learned.

“No,” he told Louis, “no, it was a test run. I wanted to ask you on a surprise date, I tested it on Katie.”

And in hindsight it was probably not the best idea, though it was cute and he wouldn’t accept criticism, and he perhaps should have checked the perimeter for any unsuspecting, but a bit insecure Louis’s before conducting the experiment.

Louis looks crestfallen at that, “I ruined it all by being dramatic, I’m so sorry, Harry.”

Harry laughs a bit wetly at that, shaking his head, “no, you silly tosser. Well, yes, you did, but I’m not mad.”

And he isn’t. He’s a bit confused, but he thinks he’s got it all figured out, and he’s mainly just happy, happy and relieved. Because Louis likes him. He likes him _back_. So what, so fucking _what_ , if they were a bit dramatic about getting this point?

Louis. Likes. Him. Back.

“And just to clarify,” Harry hurries to say, “I like you too. I’m interested in only you, too.”

Louis smiles fondly at him, his thumb caressing Harry’s wrist, doesn’t say anything, but his smile says loud and proud ‘I know’.

Harry clarifies anyway, because he’s nervous, and he doesn’t talk fast, but when he’s nervous he does talk a lot, just not as fast, and he also rambles in his thoughts, takes precautions for everything.

“Just thought, I’d, you know,” he wets his lips, “let you know. We’re on the same page.”

Louis nods, “yeah, I know that now.”

They sit in silence for a few minutes, not talking, just looking at each other, Louis keeping him warm with a hand on his wrist, thumb caressing his wrist, and it’s so nice. Everything’s slowed down, and it’s just them, and the rain has stopped, and Harry isn’t crying, actually feels a bit like screaming.

When he’s slept a little. His eyes do hurt a bit, they’re heavy like he’s gonna close them soon and not be able to open them again.

“You look tired, love,” Louis says, and Harry can only nod, his head feeling like it’s underwater.

Louis smiles, other hand fondly swiping through his hair, resting on his hand on Harry’s cheek, not doing anything, just looking sweetly at him, resting his hand on his cheek.

Harry just smiles back at him, feels so content with all of Louis’ attention on him. He’s been craving it since the moment he met him, and it doesn’t feel like it’s too much, Louis’ attention on him, it feels like cosmos.

It always does.

The world slows down a bit, to his speed, when Louis’s by his side.

He never wants Louis to leave to be honest. 

“Come on up, then,” Louis whispers, hands around Harry’s arms, dragging him up.

He’s lightheaded for a second as he stands up for the first time in quite long, or maybe it’s just the feeling of having told Louis about his feelings, having Louis return them, having had Louis literally run after him like this was The Notebook or Love Actually.

Like their love story was one of the classics, the biggest ones.

That’s a nice thought, innit?

Louis holds him steady, one hand on his arm and one on his waist, and he doesn’t let go, until Harry focuses on Louis, smiling, and reaching out with his hand, demanding, “the word.”

Louis stares a little, until a smile breaks out on his face, and then he takes Harry’s hand, holds it tightly in his, “as you wish.”

Ah. The Princess Bride.

That one had one of the five most important kisses in history, didn’t it?

Looking at Louis, smiling, blushing, he thinks that when they get to that stage, their kisses will be able to knock all the others of the list.

Without sounding too conceited.

As they slowly make their way back, there’s no rush, their voices soft, trading secrets and inside jokes, the sun makes it way out of the clouds immediately. 

The sun is shining so, so bright, and in the leftover mist from the rain, a rainbow appears, and it’s the only thing the sky can do to comfort, show its support of its little boy.

But the sky’s boy isn’t alone, there’s someone by his side, there’s a lot of someones, but one in particular that seem so, so important.

The rainbow is for him too, even if they seem to preoccupied with each other to notice.

The next few days pass by in a haze of glory, Harry has never felt this high, on top of the world, embracing the future.

Nothing’s sealed yet, but Louis likes him, and Harry likes Louis, and they like each other, and Louis ran after him and held his hand the entire way back, and the boys smiled fondly at them, and Louis _likes_ Harry. Like, like likes. He wants to go on a date with Harry, he wants to date Harry for a long time, not just one date, but multiple.

He wants to date Harry, and Harry’s never wanted anything more than date Louis, and it’s all coming together, and it’s just, it’s just great. It’s all so great.

Waking up in the morning, is one of the easiest things to do, just because he knows he’ll be spending the day with Louis. And that’s really the best motivation anyone could have to get Harry to do something.

Got Louis, got Harry. Package deal.

“Harry?”, Louis’ voice sounds behind him, and he whirls around, hair sticking out everywhere, towel around the nether part of his body, he looks at Louis much like he’d think a deer caught in the headlights would look like.

“Huh?”, he was gonna say something intelligent, but looking at Louis, hair soft, fringe soft, glasses on, looking a little sleepy, it’s really hard to focus on anything else.

And his eyes, of course. Blue, blue, blue.

And then he follows Louis’ eyes down, and it’s like it actually gets through to him that he’s not wearing anything but a fucking towel.

The sky outside turns a bright shade of pink, and Louis gets so confused, surprised, that he jumps back, eyes wide at the sky, allowing Harry to slip into their room to get himself some underpants at least.

Louis follows him after he’s had time to actually put clothes on, looking wide-eyed, eyes bright, almost like a little kid.

“Did you see that, Harry?”, and his voice is so excited that Harry can’t help but grin, and if his cheeks match the sky outside, no one’s saying anything.

“What?”

“The sky, you dolt!”, Louis exclaims, pointing out where yeah, the sky is still pink, has faded a bit, but it’s still pink.

Harry nods, scrambling to find a reply that doesn’t sound like he’s hiding something. Which is absurd because who would ever suspect a 16 year old, or any person really, to be able to affect the sky, the weather? No one. No one sane, that is.

Louis is, well, reasonably sane. No more insane than the rest of them.

“The sky?”, he says, and it’s said like a question, and so guilty, even though he shouldn’t feel guilty at all. Why’s he such a bad liar, God knows. “It’s very pretty.”

Louis stops for a second, looking a bit confused, but then nods, smiles softly. “Yeah, it is. Real pretty.”

Harry almost, only almost, gets the need to preen at that.

He doesn’t, but it was close, because that sky is because of him. He painted the sky pink. He made it pretty for Louis.

Without thinking, because that’s sort of a tradition lately, he says, “think it’s prettier when it’s blue, though.” 

He doesn’t really absorb what he said until Louis lets out a soft yelp, and Harry lifts his eyes from where he’d been looking at his phone. No new messages.

Louis looks so surprised, cheeks a bit rosy, and his eyes are trained on the ground, and as Harry watches, his mouth goes from a little open, to pressed tightly together in a fond smile, like he’s trying to contain, holding back, but he can’t.

“You think so?”, Louis asks, and it feels loaded, and Harry doesn’t understand that really because it might not have been what he wanted to say, something he wanted Louis just yet, but it also feels like it’s a start of the push that’ll make the dominos fall over. 

Right now, they’re still very much in limbo. And it’s not that it’s bad, because they need to talk about everything, they need to find out if they want to do this for real. Because one thing is liking each other, another is actually acting on it, being able to function in a date setting. Some people who start as friends shut down when they get feelings and act on them, feel like they don’t know the person across them anymore, just because there’s a new label instead of friends.

Harry doesn’t want that to happen to them. He wants them to be on the same page, want this, and understand that they know each other. They got along from the get go. They’ve been intune with each other from the moment they met.

He doesn’t want to fuck this up.

Harry nods fervently, maybe too enthusiastic, but he doesn’t really, actually care. He wants Louis to know just how much Harry thinks of him. That he adores every single part of him.

“I do, the blue sky’s beautiful,” and it’s so clearly not about the sky, even though it is very pretty when it matches Louis’ eyes, nothing could ever match up to Louis.

Louis turns away for a second, but Harry can see the smile on his face, can see the way his hands itch to do something, and he feels quite smug about being able to get a reaction like out of Louis.

He made Louis _blush_ twice.

“D’ ya?”, and his voice is so soft, and Harry nods smiling, and then feels a surge of braveness, a surge of extreme adoration for the boy in front of him, reaches out his hand to him.

Louis looks at it for a second, and his smile turns even softer, hand coming up to grab Harry’s.

They just stand there for a while, looking at each other, feeling each others’ warmth, holding onto each other like they’re each other’s anchor. Louis presses their joined hands, and steps closer to Harry. It all feels so intimate, they’re alone, and so fragile, like if just one sound could be heard, the moment would be gone, and Louis would let go of his hand.

He holds onto Louis’ a bit tighter, just to make sure it doesn’t happen.

“You know, Harry Styles,” Louis says, “have anyone ever told you, you have the most captivating eyes?”

And no, no one really has before. Or if someone has, he doesn’t remember them right now, his mind blank, focused on Louis being so focused on him, eyes boring into his, apparently, captivating eyes.

“No,” he gets out, “not really, they’re just green.”

Louis huffs a little laughing-like sound, “just green? It’s beautiful. Reminds me of spring, everything coming back to life, you know? Especially when you smile.”

And that’s, well, that’s just brilliant.

“Thanks,” he says and he’s so, so sure he’s blushing, but he’s also so sure it doesn’t really bother him that much. He doesn’t really mind Louis knowing what he does to him.

He’s pretty sure Louis’ known since that first day, anyway.

“You know, what I regret most?”

Harry cocks his head, shaking it a bit, “Playing Danny Zuko in Grease?”

Louis barks a laugh at that, looking absolutely delighted, and Harry finds himself transfixed, sun hitting Louis eyes, making them shine like diamonds.

“I was brilliant in Grease, and you know it.”

Harry smiles at that, feeling proud like he does when Louis nails a note in a song, and nods. “Yeah, you were.”

Louis smiles at him, and for a second, they just stand in silence, again, and Harry thinks that if he never were to sat another word again in his life, it wouldn’t be so bad if only he had Louis to look at.

He’s insanely pretty.

Outside, the sky is changing lilac, and he knows that soon it will match Louis’ exact eye colour today.

It’s beautiful baby blue, funkling like a precious stone. As precious as Louis is.

Harry breaks the silnece, prompting, “what’s up, mate? Need someone beat up?”

He’s not quite sure why he said the last thing, but the magazines always said that girls were attracted to bad guys, and beating someone up for your love is pretty bad. He doesn’t know if it’s the same for Louis, but, it’s worth a try, innit.

Louis mouths the word ‘mate’ while laughing before shaking his head as well, not paying Harry’s bad boy attitude any mind. “Regret every day that I didn’t call you after we met. Was a right tit about-”

Harry immediately jumps. “Don’t worry about it, Lou. Seriously, there’s nothing to regret. We’re here now, yeah?”

“Well, we could’ve had more time,” he shrugs, “I’d liked to have more time with you.”

And that’s just incredibly sweet, innit?

“You’re adorable,” he says, and he’s almost surprised because it just slipped out, like reflex.

Louis looks absolutely affronted at that, mouth a little agape, as he splutters, “I am _not_ adorable! I am a handsome, rugged _man_ , don’t confuse me for you, mate!”

Harry almost gives him back, starting one of their infamous bicker rounds, before he sees a loophole to really egg Louis on.

“Aww, babe,” he coos, “you think I’m cute?”

Louis takes a lil step back, obviously not prepared for Harry to throw his words back at him like he did, and it makes Harry feel absolutely delighted.

And then Louis relaxes, and Harry thinks that he might look even more pretty now than before.

Louis steps closer to Harry again, and then closer, and again, until he’s just in front of Harry, blue eyes sparkling down at him.

The sky is so blue outside. So beautiful.

“Yeah, I do, love,” and Louis is calling him pet names now, and that’s really doing things to his heart, like making it beat a mile an hour, and Harry’s certain he looks absolutely in love.

He feels like it, anyway.

“I think you’re adorable, cute, and handsome, and,” Louis takes a little breath, “I would very much like to take you on a date.”

Harry blinks, then smiles, and then remembers something, and the smile vanishes, “like right now?”

Louis looks a bit uncertain, “well, that is, if you’re not busy with all your other significant others.”

Harry rolls his eyes fondly, shaking his head. “You’re being stupid, babe.”

Louis looks so happy, that Harry kinda wants to caress his cheek. So he does. Louis leans into the touch, and Harry wants to live in this moment forever.

“It’s only,” he says, “it’s only, I wanted to ask you-”

“Absolutely not, I’m the eldest,” Louis cuts in, looking dead serious, and yeah, Harry can’t really argue that.

“It’s just, I don’t really want my flower idea to go to waste,” he shrugs, feeling a little silly, but also determined. He’s not gonna let Louis take this from him. “It did get us to, like, admit our, well, our feelings? I guess? Thought it’d be poetic?”

When he finally looks at Louis again, Louis’s smiling so big, that Harry feels blinded by its brightness. Having Louis so close is overwhelmingly, having Louis smile at him like he’s just saved the entire planet - is something else entirely.

“Let me take you on a date, Harry,” Louis begs him, hand holding Harry’s tight, “and I’ll let you invite me on all the cheesy dates you want where we can talk about feelings and revelations, and you’ll gift me endless flowers.”

Harry dimples, happy and satisfied with the compromise, “deal.”

Louis smiles softly, whispering back, “deal.”

They look at each other again, and that’s been happening a lot recently, before Louis seems to steel himself.

Pressing a kiss against Harry’s cheek, Louis whispers, “I’ll take you out somewhere tonight. 6pm.”

Harry nods, as he watches Louis walk away, hand still lingering in the air from where Louis had held it so tightly, warmly, safely. 

“He what?”

“Invited me on a date.”

Liam looks surprised, mouth opening and closing, and then a smile breaks out on his face. “He did it then?”

Harry cocks his head a bit, looking at Liam with a little smile, “did what?”

“Well, told you how he felt and all that?”

Harry nodded, trying to keep the blush from taking over his entire face. From the way Liam looked all endeared, he isn’t sure he managed, but that’s fine anyway. He doesn’t really mind getting these butterflies, getting a little embarrassed, because Louis likes him, Louis asked him on a date, he’s going on a date with Louis, and Louis _likes_ him.

To be completely honest, he’s not sure anything could ever pull him down from this cloud.

Right now the stars could go fuck themselves, he’s completely fine where he is.

“Yeah, he did,” Harry admits, “a few days ago. When I ran away.”

Liam laughs goodheartedly. “So dramatic, the two of you.”

A silence lulls over them for a while, Harry mostly lost in thought about what he’s gonna wear because it has to be perfect and he wants Louis to be in awe of him, like he was earlier, and then Liam coughs a little.

“Hey, ehm, Haz?”

“Hm?”

“You know,” Liam looks a bit unsteady when Harry looks up, “sorry for, well, being so dramatic too. We were just so worried about Louis, and we didn’t-”

Harry immdiately shakes his head, “no, no. Please. We figured it out, don’t worry. Should just have been honest from the start, you know?”

Liam smiles a bit. “You always were, though.”

Harry scratches his hair, rocking his head from side to side a bit, reflecting over how best to put it.

“Not completely honest, was I? I didn’t tell him.” He shrugs. “Can’t expect anyone to be a mindreader?”

Liam shakes his head. “No, I suppose not. But sorry, for believing you’d caught feelings for someone else, when I knew.”

“Don’t stress it, it was a bit weird, but I,” he cuts himself off, looking out the window, “I think we needed the push. To actually put everything into words. Sometimes dramatic isn’t bad.”

He’s not sure how everything would have panned out if Louis hadn’t been there the day he gave Katie the rose, he’s not sure if he would have chickened out, and that’s the thing. There’s all these what ifs, that are essentially pointless to think about because in the end they got it sorted. There was perhaps a few more tears and a bit more rain involved than originally planned in Harry’s head, but whatever he had planned is something he will ever know if he’d succeed in.

No need dwelling on a past that won’t, can’t, be changed anyway. He knows Louis likes him back, even with all the rain and tears, and Louis knows Harry likes him, and they’re going on a _date_ tonight, and they’re both on the same, they want to _date_ , not just a one off thing.

It’s great. No matter what happened, this, right here, is what he’d dreamed about. And he’s gonna ask Louis to go on a date using a flower, and it’s great. All his plans are gonna come to fruition, they’re just a bit delayed, and that’s fine. It happens. Schedules change all the time, all that matters is the goal. 

Liam doesn’t say anything, but he’s smiling, and looking a bit touched, and a bit proud, and Harry feels his cheeks go a little red because Liam is like a bit of a dad sometimes, he knows so much about singing and Harry can always go to him and get advice, and here’s Liam being proud of _Harry_ for something he’s done by _himself_.

Liam’s hugs are always the best, they’re warm, and you just feel so at ease. You feel kinda at home with your family for a bit.

They just stand there for a bit, until Liam draws back, smiling, and Harry can’t help smile back.

“Let’s get you ready for the big night, yeah?”

When Louis picks Harry up, which is well, just knocking on his, their, door, he’s feeling proper stressed, nervous, and his stomach is all knotted up, and his hand almost shake as he goes to open the door.

Louis’s smiling at him though, and he’s looking gorgeous. He’s wearing his glasses and a striped blouse, and he’s the most gorgeous being Harry’s ever seen. He feels so lucky and so underdressed in his quite normal black shirt, can’t help but fiddle a bit with the buttons.

“Heya love,” Louis’ voice is cheery, excited and Harry’s butterflies go all sorts of crazy because that’s because of _him_ , “you ready?”

Harry dimples back at him. “You got my carriage, ready?”

Louis laughs and puts out his arm for Harry to take, “of course you’d expect that, posh boy.”

Harry picks up the gauntlet, sticking his nose in the air. “I will not apologise for trying to uphold my reputation.”

Louis looks at him with a slightly different smile, and that too makes the butterflies pay even more attention, fly all the way up to his throat.

“Don’t you worry, I’ll make an honest woman out of you yet.”

Not even paying attention to the implications, because if he _does_ , he’ll be thinking about that all night. Louis wanting a future with him, Louis himself hinting at marriage, life long commitment, rings, wedding, the whole shebang, and Louis wants it all with Harry.

Either that, or he’s gonna convince himself that Louis only said it to go along with the joke, and that’s not an acceptable option, so Harry’s electing to just ignore that it even exists.

He gives a serious nod back at him, taking Louis’ arm in his, feeling a little silly spanculating around with Louis like they’re going to a proper posh gala, but probably going to TGI Friday or something.

“Wouldn’t expect anything else, my good sir.”

Louis looks over at him, hand clapping Harry’s that’s resting on Louis’. “You needn’t worry, I’ll be a gentleman tonight, do nothing to tarnish that reputation of yours.”

Which is a bit disappointing.

But he did say tonight. So there’s also a chance of Louis tarnishing that reputation of Harry’s after midnight. Technically tomorrow.

He’ll have to see.

Right now, all that matters is that he’s holding Louis Tomlinson’s arm in his, and they’re walking side by side, and Louis is chattering away with how excited he’s been, and a little nervous, and he’s so endearing, his free arm whirling around trying to make up for the other arm’s absence in animating whatever Louis is saying.

He’s saying a lot. And Harry tries to hang onto every word, though he does get a little distracted by Louis’ mouth, enunciating words in that so specific Donny accent, and his sparkling blue eyes.

If he looked out, the night sky would be way too bright, trying to replicate Louis’ eyes, and Harry’s not even sorry about it.

It’s just so nice, being with Louis, heading to a date with Louis, that Louis invited him on, and Louis is so happy, and that makes Harry even happier, and he can’t believe this is his life.

He’s going on a date with the boy he wants to love, he’s in a band with the four best lad he’s ever met, and they’re getting more and more popular by the Friday - fans coming to see them, fans getting excited just for them, wanting to meet them, get their autographs, and it’s all so overwhelming, and Harry doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve all this.

He’s not going to criticize, but he just feels, yeah he just feels blessed. He was raised religious, not overly so but it was always there, present, in the evening prayers his mum did with him before going to bed, silly little ones like ‘dear God, please let the sun shine, amen’ and ‘dear God, please smite Gemma, she stole my truck, but also know I love her, amen’. But everything has been so good lately, he feels like every single one of his dreams are en route to become a reality, and he’s feeling so blessed. Even if there isn’t a God, he’d just like to send out a thank you to whatever force’s out there, keeping watch over him, making sure he’s getting what he wants.

“You alright there, love?”, Louis says after Harry’s been lost in thoughts, just staring a bit at Louis, caught up in how mesmerizing he looks, how lucky Harry is.

He shakes his head, trying to clear it enough to actually string sentences together, nods then. “Yeah, all good. Just a little, a little overwhelmed?”

Louis smiles at him, looking like he couldn’t have said anything better. “I overwhelm you? Just say the word, darling, I’ll try and dial it down for you.”

Harry’s sure he’s blushing down to his toes, getting even worse when he slowly shakes his head.

“Nah, ehm, no that’s, that’s alright.”

It’s not often Louis is rendered speechless, Harry thinks, but he’s accomplished it twice today. He’s pretty proud if he does say so himself.

And he does.

Louis clears his throat, lips twitching into a smile. 

They don’t say much more, just walks beside each other until they get to the restaurant, but the air’s nice, and Louis is warmwarm by his side, and he feels so comfortable, at ease, and he can’t wait to sit across from Louis, have an excuse to look into his blue eyes for as long as he wants.

Louis gives his hand a little squeeze before opening the restaurant, and that’s when it hits Harry, for real. They’re going on a date, and yes, he knew that, but they’re entering the restaurant they’re gonna dine at for their first date with their arms wound around each other like a proper Victorian couple, and it’s too tender to be some banter between two lads, and Harry’s pretty sure he looks too fond, too affectionate for anyone to even contemplate them being anything but on a date.

They’re seated by a male waiter, and he’s, he doesn’t even blink, and Harry almost loses his jaw. Because that wasn’t what he expected, Louis’ and his arms are still linked, and he didn’t blink, the waiter. Didn’t do a double take. Didn’t drop any sort of line. He just, went about with his work, treating exactly the same as he would everyone else, and it makes Harry want to choke up a little, have a little cry in the bathroom when he goes to text Liam. He’s pretty sure the other boys are Louis’ to update.

It’s not that he’s expecting everyone to be homophobic, to be as close minded as they were back in Holmes Chapel, it’s just, it’s all so new to him. This quiet acceptance, quiet support, open acceptance, open support.

He always hoped he’d have that.

Sometimes he didn’t dare actually expect it.

“You alright, Haz?”, Louis asks, because he’s intune with Harry, and he can always sense Harry’s emotional state, if his thoughts are getting him sidetracked.

He quickly nods, smile a little shaky but there.

“Yeah, I’m,” he shrugs a little, “I’m good. Impressed with the service.”

And Louis smiles like he knows exactly what Harry is saying without saying, and he reaches across the table, and quickly, softly, squeezes Harry’s hand.

It warms Harry like if he was in front of a fireplace, and he smiles softly back at Louis. There couldn’t really be a better start to this evening he thinks, and he thinks Louis agrees by the way his hand hover in the after letting go of Harry’s.

Like he doesn’t actually want to let go.

They can’t order anything fancy, but it doesn’t really matter. They’re here, together. They get soda, even if Louis could get some wine or beer, and they get pasta, and it’s perfect, because they’re best friends before anything else, eating ugly isn’t something they’re worried about.

They’ve heard and smelled each other’s farts and burps, seen each other in the morning after they’ve been drinking till 6 am looking absolutely smashed. They’ve seen each other at their best, and their worst.

A little pasta isn’t going to make him nervous. It isn’t.

Or it wouldn’t if Louis wasn’t so damned good at eating pasta. Swirling it on the spoon into a perfect little ball, like he hasn’t been doing anything else since he popped out his mum’s womb on that wonderful, perfect Christmas Eve.

It’s really unfair, if Harry’s being completely honest, because he doesn’t have those skills. He can cut the pasta up a bit, and try to eat it without having to try and eat the whole fork, gape over it like he’s some kind of monster, all the while Louis is looking at him like he can’t decide whether to laugh or just be endeared.

“Shut up,” Harry grumbles after he’s dropped his pasta for the third time in a row. He’s trying to swirl it around the fork, right, and then he overdoes it once, and it all falls back down, and he’ll have to do it again, and it’s like pasta changes length or he just doesn’t learn, and Louis is sitting with a hand over his mouth, eyes crinkling, face turned almost all the way around so Harry can’t see it.

But he can, and it’s not _funny_ because he wants his pasta, and he wants to do properly, and he wants to be as graceful as Louis, and he’s just not, and it’s so unfair, and Louis is just laughing.

He would too, if he was being honest with himself, but he’s not, so instead he’s just really offended tat Louis could do that to him.

“Love, you gotta calm down,” Louis tries to say as seriously as possible, even though he fails miserably, and Harry sends him a dark glare, or attempts to. He also fails miserably, so there’s that. “It can sense your fear.”

He makes a face. “Oi, fuck off, will ya?”

Louis smiles delighted, not even trying to holdback. “Ah love, am I beginning to rub off on you? My little posh boy, going all rogue-”

“Shut up, Louis.”

“I’m so proud, brings a tear to me eye, really it does.”

Harry can’t help his laughing, shakes his head. “You’re so fucking annoying, you know that?”

Louis shrugs, looking every bit as pleased with himself as he does when a prank turns out exactly the way he wants it. It’s very endearing, even if he pretends to be annoyed.

That applies to a lot of instances with Louis, really.

“Well, if you weren’t dropping your t’s like you are, I’d believe you a bit more,” and he looks like he could have just dropped the mic with how absolutely smug he looks.

Harry can’t help but just smile at him.

“Well, maybe, “ he shrugs a bit, “it’s not the worst habit to take over.”

Louis smiles, not cocky or smug, but rather sweetly, nods, like to himself and mutters, “no, it’s not.”

Harry looks down a little, trying to hide his blush.

Outside the sky is turning lilac.

Louis disrupts the silence after a little time. “You know, I’ve never seen such beautiful colours in the sky before.”

Harry’s head snaps, and then he remembers he doesn’t have anything to feel scared or guilty of, and then he follows Louis’ eyes to the sky outside.

It’s definitely beautiful, the pink and blue intertwining, like the sky can’t seem to agree on what it wants to show him the most. Louis’ blue eyes or his own blushing, and it brings out a beautiful, beautiful contrast.

It’s not clouds separating the colours, it’s being mixed together like two paintings being mixed, slowly, slowly becoming one.

“It is very pretty,” Harry agrees, smiling a bit. It’s beautiful, and it’s all because of Louis.

Louis is the reason the sky is so beautiful because Harry has only ever coloured the sky, these past few months, when he just couldn’t reign in his feelings, and it’s always been revolving around Louis.

He hasn’t had the sun shine just for fun in a long time, it hasn’t even crossed his mind, if he’s being honest. He’s been so busy with singing and pining and singing, and then a bit more pining. And now he’s busy being on a date with Louis Tomlinson, and in the future he’ll hopefully be busy with doing more of the dating and then some of the singing too.

Maybe even singing to Louis, while on a date. Singing with Louis.

“Never saw it like this.” There’s a brief pause, like Louis is debating whether to say something, and when he opens his mouth again, it feels like Harry _has_ to hear every single breath and sound he makes. “Until I met you. The sky outside, Harry, it was so pink.”

He remembers, it was one of the first times it ever turned pink other than when he put his nails up to the sky imagining that the colour somehow could reflect back on his nails, only for him to see.

Louis’ voice is so soft, and Harry’s captivated by it.

“It’s weird, don’t you think?”

Harry doesn’t think he’s ever really heard Louis’ voice sound like this, not even when he sings and is at his most emotional. It’s such an alluring voice, he has, not only sexually, but just. You want to keep hearing it, want to give it everything it demands.

It feels like a siren call.

Harry subconsciously leans in closer, looking probably a bit dreamily at Louis whose blue eyes narrow a bit before clear again.

With a confidence he didn’t know he possessed, he reaches out to brush some of Louis’ fringe into line, having come loose at some point after they left the X-Factor house back home.

He shrugs, feeling calm, free. “Not really.”

Louis sits back so quickly, Harry almost jumps back, eyes wide, hand still extended and shaped to go through Louis’ hair again.

His voice is a bit hoarse, still alluring but it’s like he’s trying to hold back, which, selfish. Harry really liked the other voice.

“What do you mean?”

Harry hums again, hand waving impatiently trying to get Louis to move forward. After a bit he does, though he looks confused, because it’s true that Harry isn’t really that comfortable with PDA yet, but he really wants to comb his fingers through Louis’ soft, soft hair.

He could probably use it as a pillow.

He’d have to test that.

“Well, you know,” he throws his other hand around carelessly, gesturing to the room, the sky, at large, “it does as I say and feel, so.”

Louis looks immediately alert, and then he blinks, and looks at Harry closely.

Before he can say anything, this fuzzy lovely feeling of listening to Louis still present, even bigger now that he gave the answer Louis was looking, Louis is once more pulling away roughly, his eyes wide and a bit panicked, his mouth a little open, almost like he’s in shock.

Weird that.

“Harry,” and his voice is so different all of a sudden, that’s so random, Harry thinks. “Are you with me?”

Harry cocks his head a bit, fuzzy feeling still present, but it’s like it’s dwindling. Like before there was a steady stream of _something_ keeping the feeling alive, and now it’s like the source’s been cut off, and the feeling is slowly lifting. Kind of like the mist in the morning.

He takes his hands up to his face, gives it a good scrub, yawns, feeling so so tired all of a sudden.

Through the yawn, he gets out, “yeah, yeah, I’m good.”

Louis doesn’t look convinced, is pouring some water from their shared flask into a glass, slowly pushing it towards Harry who takes it gratefully. There’s a little headache building, which is annoying.

He’s on a date with Louis, for gods sake. Could his body behave just for these next few hours?

“What did you say? Before?”, he asks, massaging his temple, trying to get the throbbing to stop, “With the sky and all that?”

He’s yawning again, and it feels so weird. Like he’s hungover, but he hasn’t had anything to drink today or for ages really. Too focused on Louis, finding out a way to ask Louis out (only for Louis to ask him out first, typical).

Louis looks increasingly horrified, and Harry’s blinking a little sluggishly, not bececause he’s feeling sick, he’s just so, so tired, and his head isn’t getting better despite the water he’s just pouring down.

“You don’t remember?”, Louis inquired, looking very distressed at that option, “any of what you said?”

Harry purses his lips, looking up while trying to remember if he does remember what he said. He doesn’t really.

“Nah,” he shrugs, waving his hand, like he’s waving all the problems goodbye, “don’t think it matters though. Was probably just something sappy about how blue skies always remind me of you.”

That does bring a little colour to Louis’ cheeks, making him look a little healthier, a little more alive, and that’s better than the pale, pale version he saw just moments ago.

He’s biting his lips, looking torn, and Harry’s just really confused. “Yeah, ehm, something like that.”

Harry nods. “See? Nothing special, I’ve told you that before.”

Louis nods, biting his lip. “Not quite like this.”

Harry shrugs again, feeling, looking completely unbothered. He’s tired but he also feels a bit like he’s on top of the world.

Huh, who knew you could get drunk of a soda?

Unless it’s not a soda.

“This is a soda, right?”, he says, pointing to the almost empty glass filled with what he thought was Fanta.

Louis blinks, lifts his eyebrows, throws his hand out to the glass. “Yeah, you haven’t been complaining that it’s not, so I assume.”

Harry hums quietly, thoughtfully. “Makes sense. Just worried they put something in there, really.”

Louis’ eyes snap to his. “Something?”

“Yeah, you know,” Harry blinks, waving his hand in front of his eyes, “‘feels fuzzy up here.”

“We should get you home, ba-Harry,” and that more than anything makes Harry squint his eyes suspiciously.

“Why didn’t you call me baby?”, and then a thought strikes him, and he grabs onto Louis tightly as the other comes around the table to help him up, he follows on shaky legs. “Was I that lousy a date? I’ll make it up to you, I swear, I’m sorry I’m feeling sick. I’m a great date, please, let me-”

Louis hushes him quietly, hand stroking his cheek placatingly, smile soft, eyes a touch… regretful? Why regretful?

“No, love,” Louis whispers, before looking over to where the waiter is coming over, briefly smiling, “don’t apologise. You were brilliant. If anything, I was the worst date you’ve ever been on.”

Harry’s vehemently shaking his head, not even able to put it into words how wrongwrongwrong Louis, how dare Louis call the love of Harry’s life the worst date? How actually dares he?

He’s still shaking his head when Louis’s paid, and Louis laughs a little at the sight, smile blinding for a moment before it disappears.

“Let’s get you home,” he whispers again, kissing Harry’s temple, and oh, oh how relieving that felt.

Like the magic kiss your mother gives you when you’re young. That’s Louis’ kiss. Heals anything it touches, he thinks.

That’s just Louis though, always helping, always comforting, always perfect.

“Thank you for tonight, Louis,” he whispers, and Louis smiles a little sadly at him, wrapping his arm around Harry’s waist, holding him close, the other still holding Harryøs hand tightly.

“Thank you, Harry.”

When they get to the door, Harry’s feeling even fuzzier, and he hasn’t stopped giggling at this idea he got ten minutes ago, and Louis is throwing him some very concerned looks.

“Okay, Lou, Lou, Lou,” he giggles, “you have to say goodbye to me at my doorstep, like the gentleman you are.”

Louis smiling a little fondly, a small smile, but his mood considered, Harry counts it as a win.

“There’s no doorstop, and it’s the door into our shared room.”

Harry keeps giggling, a little weakly swatting Louis’ chest. “That’s not very open minded of you, mister!”

Louis shakes his head, before nodding. “Okay, okay. You absolute maniac.”

Harry throws him a finger kiss before separating him from Louis. “Do you want to come up?”

It’s meant to be innocent, but Louis bites his lip, looking a little out of his depth before shaking his head slowly, then blinking almost to wake up.

Harry can sympathise.

“Oh I shouldn’t, think of what the neighbours will think?”, he’s smiling though, and Harry’s smiling back.

“It’s cold outside, though,” he points out smugly, and Louis looks at him like he can’t believe him.

“Are you quoting Christmas songs at me, mr. Styles?”

Harry shrugs, though the need to giggle is still very much present. “Not Christmas songs, birthday songs, Louis.”

“Birthday- oh, oh, you think you’re so clever, huh?”

He goes in for a little tickle, and Harry gasps with laughter within just a few moments, and he’s turning his face to look at Louis, and finds Louis already looking at him, face lit up by a smile so bright that if he could, didn’t feel so tired, he’d demand the sky make the sun shine so he could compare what was brightest: Louis’ happiness or the Sun?

He knew what he would put his money on.

He can’t get himself to look away from Louis, even as the other backs him a bit closer to the door, head hanging a little, their faces in front of each other, and Harry’s sure he can feel his heart pumping stress and adrenaline through his body, and his mind going berserk with all the feelings of hope it’s filling his body with.

Louis closes his eyes for a bit, before reaches around Harry, and before he knows it, pulls the door handle a little down.

“Goodnight, mr. Styles,” Louis smiles, looking so happy, though there’s still something in his eyes. “It’s been a pleasure.”

Not able to look away, he’s just staring at Louis when he answers. “Thank you, it’s been fantastic, mr. Tomlinson. Thank you for taking me.”

Louis smiles sheepily. “I’ll see you in a bit.”

Harry laughs, and then blushes when Louis gives his cheek a kiss, and then the other, and then a last one on his forehead.

He wants to honestly smack Louis for that.

“I’ll see you.”

Two minutes after there’s a knock on the door, and when Harry opens, there’s Louis.

With a rose in his hand.

Grumbling, and a little more awake, he accepts the rose gently, and then whispers furiously at Louis for the rest of the time they change into their night clothes - literally just underpants, but whatever - about how Louis had _promised_ that Harry was gonna be the one to invite him on the next day, and he knew that Harry was gonna use a flower, and how unfair isn’t this? Stealing the other’s tricks?

“We’re not in a competition, love,” Louis tries to remind him gently, and Harry almost laughs, squinting distrustingly at him.

“Well, you would say that, since you’re winning and all, anyway.”

Louis laughs, shaking his head, before crawling under his duvet, muttering about how ridiculous Harry is being, and he looked offended at him.

“Don’t just slag me off under your breath, mate,” he whispers, “say it to my face.”

Louis looks over at him with an exasperated expression. “You’re deluded.”

Harry points a finger accusingly at Louis. “Just you wait and see, mister, I’ll be planning and planning, get ready to be wooed. Hard.”

Louis laughs while getting comfortable, fluffing the pillow, and looking all sorts of endearing.

“Can’t wait, love.”

Harry, satisfied, accepting this as Louis’ capitulation, gets ready for sleep as well, carefully puts down his rose on his night stand, just lying there, looking at it, feeling so so warm, and so, so blessed.

There was a little weird period tonight, but all in all, he thinks it was a good night. He doesn’t think anything could drag him down from here.

As he falls asleep, he prays for one of the first times since he left home and his mum behind to go chase an impossible dream with his four boys.

_Dear God, thank for giving me, introducing me to Louis. Amen._

Turns out, nothing could drag him down, but a certain someone could. 

Despite their evening being perfect, despite their banter going back and forth, and there not being a lull in conversation, and despite Louis giving him a rose at the end of the night, three kisses - granted, not on the mouth, but they still count, and after so many hints, he’s ignoring Harry from the moment they woke up to the alarm clock.

And he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand at all.

Last night things were good. They were perfect. They just as it should be, and Harry fell asleep a little dizzy, with a headache, but with such a hopeful spirit and heart, and not wanting to fall asleep, not wanting to not be with Louis, not wanting to not talk to him or look at him, and now he doesn’t even look in the general direction of Harry. And he doesn’t understand why. Nothing could have happened between when they went to sleep, and when they woke up.

They went to sleep at the same time. He knows he did. He stayed up a little to watch Louis, in a total non-creepy way, and he was so sure that Louis fell asleep. 

When he looks to Liam, looking lost he’s sure and crestfallen and a bit heartbroken maybe, he doesn’t say anything, just gives a little shake with his head. He doesn’t even know what that’s supposed to mean. Louis said he was a good date, didn’t he? He did. Louis said that, and he sounded like he meant, and he was so affectionate and gentle, and that couldn’t have been a lie. Harry knows Louis, knows who Louis is, and he would never string along a person like this for no reason.

That’s not Louis.

Looking to Niall and Zayn, the latter sitting right by Liam’s side, almost glued there and it’s a little harder to be excited and happy for them this time around, doesn’t give him any more answers. He gets sad looks, confused looks, shrugs and headshakes. He can’t use any of that to anything.

Worse though, as the day progresses and Louis stays far away from him, is the pitying looks he gets. He’s never been the receiver of pity before. Not like this anyway. He’s lost a grandparent, and he’s had his hand shaken, gotten hugs, and he’s cried. But that was grief, that was for someone he was never gonna see again, someone he didn’t get to know properly, and the grief was for how unfair that was, to never have the chance.

But Louis is still here. He’s right there, so close that Harry could almost touch him if he wanted to. But Louis doesn’t want him to. He doesn’t want Harry near, he doesn’t want to date Harry, he doesn’t want to be Harry’s friend, he doesn’t even want to look at Harry.

This, this abrupt cut off from Louis’ side is so like the day that Harry ran into the rain, but that time the other boys knew what it was about. That day was all about a stupid miscommunication, this time it felt like it was for real. Louis had completely shut down all communication. Even Zayn had a hard time getting through to him, couldn’t even get him to mention Harry’s name or how it had went last night.

And that hurt. No matter what had happened, it hurt. Because Harry had trusted Louis with his heart, had believed, had gotten told, that it’d not be for that night only. Louis had said, had joked, with making an honest man out of Harry, and yes, Harry does get jokes, but who jokes about that on a first date? He knows they’re not boyfriends, know their future together wasn’t a guarantee, just a dream, but still, isn’t it a little messed up to joke about them having a future while going on a date?

Nothing makes sense in Harry’s head, and his heart hurts, and it doesn’t feel fair, that it just got over another Louis-induced heartbreak, and now they’re here again. Feeling stupid, feeling played, feeling naive. Feeling insecure.

He hates this, hates feeling like he’s not worth Louis, hates that it was Louis who made him feel like this, and he hates that he can’t even get angry and shout at Louis because _he doesn’t want to fucking look at him_. It’s a cowardly move, Harry thinks, to dump someone without even telling them.

To ghost them face to face.

Who even does that? Ignores their date, their bandmate, their _best friend_? Without telling anyone why?

Harry wants to hit him a little bit, and then he also wants to hug him, and he wants to scream at him, and he wants to beg him to tell him why? Why is he like this? He wants Louis to tell him what he’s done. He wants Louis to give him facts and reasons, tell him what Harry has done to warrant this treatment?

“Harry,” a voice says behind him, and he blinks, looking back startled at being so forcefully dragged out of the depths of his thoughts.

There’s Louis, and he’s looking tired, he’s looking like he’d rather be anywhere else, and he looks so, so sad. Harry’s hands twitch to reach out and pull him in for a hug, support him as best as he can, but Louis doesn’t want that, he’s sure. Everything in his body language is closed off, asking him stay far, far away.

That hurts more than anything.

He bites his lip, worrying it a bit, feeling almost numb to anything but the pain of his heart, so heavy it feels, like it might sink down, down, down, so heavy with rejection and sadness, and the insecurity pulsing through his veins.

He can’t bring himself to actually focus on Louis, doesn’t have the energy to feel as divided as he does when he sees how sad Louis looks, while also having to deal with how much Louis has hurt him in the span of just twenty-four hours.

It was cruel, Harry thinks, to get his hopes up. And Louis isn’t cruel, not at all, and he almost wants to cry with how weird, and confusing, and wrong it all is. Nothing adds up, and he just wants to go back to sleep, ants go back to the second before he woke up, tried to get in contact with Louis, and he evaded all eye contact.

He just wants this to stop. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.

“Haz,” and Harry can’t help but flinch because what the fuck is wrong with Louis? You don’t go around making someone feel like a used rag doll all day, only to turn around and call them their nickname. That’s not how it _works_. 

“Harry,” Louis amends, clearly trying to placate Harry as much as possible, and Harry hates it. He doesn’t want Louis to play nice with him, he just wants some goddamn answers.

“I know you’re hurt, and you’re confused,” Louis takes a deep breath, exhales shakily, and Harry’s still focusing on the ground, lips pressed tightly together. “And I’m sorry for that.”

Another pause in which Harry contemplates whether he should just leave. It sounds more and more like a break up speech, even if there never really was anything to break up.

Louis made sure there wasn’t.

“It’s just for the best, alright? Some day you’re gonna thank me for-”

Harry snorts, feeling hurt, stupid, and like every word out of Louis’ mouth right now is just another needle into his heart.

“Oh, this is a ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ kinda speech? Didn’t take you for such a cliché, Louis.”

“Harry, please,” Louis pleads, “don’t do that. I’m serious.”

Harry huffs a self-deprecating laugh. “And you think I’m not? This is some absolute _bullshit_ , Louis! Either you tell me why you’re behaving like a fucking dickhead, or I don’t want to hear anything at all from you.”

And it’s not because he thought that a little threat from a 16 year old with red eyes, a shaking voice, would actually get Louis to drop this whole attitude, this facade. But maybe he’d hoped. Maybe he hoped that their friendship, at the very least, would be more important to Louis than whatever bullshit reason he could have to treat Harry like this.

But Louis stays silent, and when Harry finally looks up at him, disbelief and hurt written on his face, he just presses his lips tighter together, like he’s trying to prevent himself from crying.

Well, join the club, Harry thinks bitterly.

Harry shakes his head, blinking furiously for a few seconds, holding back the tears, bites his lip before nodding to himself.

“Okay,” he whispers. “Okay, got your message, Lou.”

And maybe it’s because he wants it to hurt a little, saying Louis’ nickname, rubbing in his face what exactly he’s losing here.

Mostly, though, it’s to say it one last time. Lou, Lou, Lou.

It hurts.

“I’ll ehm, I’ll see you later.” Pushing himself up from the sofa he’s been sitting on, he doesn’t look at Louis again.

He thinks there should be something powerful in leaving Louis behind, striding away quickly, not looking back.

It doesn’t.

It feels like defeat.

There’s nothing Harry hates quite like losing without having fought.

The boys let them each sulk for a total of a two days before they each get pulled into the living room, get sit down, together, side by side, and the boys look at them with judging expressions, but their eyes are worried.

Harry feels a bit numb. Has felt numb ever since he walked away from Louis. Ever since Louis just _let_ him. He’s adopted Louis’ MO, has ignored him, and even when they’ve been practising he hasn’t looked at Louis, and it’s not because he’s conceited, but their dynamic is special and when it’s missing, the group is missing a vital organ.

It’s been hard too. Ignoring Louis. Experiencing things, thinking things, he knows Louis would have loved, would have laughed with him about, and it hurts all over again, needles to the heart, to remember that Louis and him aren’t talking. He doesn’t even know if they’re still friends, just taking a breather, or if Louis’ stupid mind has somehow convinced him that he can’t be friends with Harry either.

It’s been like living in a grey world. All the colour sucked out. All the joy of this experience. Not even the fans waiting for them was enough to bring a real smile to his face. He hasn’t been sleeping, thoughts churning, running a hundred miles an hour, trying to figure out what he’s done, or what Louis has done, that could possibly have led to this outcome.

An outcome he’d never ever saw coming.

Louis is warm beside him, and it’s stressing, being this close to him. His heart hasn’t really got the entire memo that Louis hurt him, that Louis doesn’t want him, doesn’t want anything to do with him really. If he could, he’d probably not even say anything when they’re practising.

It feels like an alternate reality, and he’s hating every single second of it.

“Lads,” Niall sighs, and Harry’s surprised Niall is leading this, intervention he supposes, but then feels all warm. Niall doesn’t like drama, but here he is, in the center of it, for them. He’s so lucky to have these boys, he feels a bit like crying if he’s honest. “We’re here to stage an intervention, if you hadn’t figured that out. What the fuck is wrong with you two?”

Harry can feel his lips twitch a little, despite how not funny it is.

Zayn clears his throat, and Niall looks over at him, looking surprised, but then nodding to himself.

“As I said, we’re here to make you two figure your shit out, because we’re not going to get kicked out of this because you can’t talk to each other.”

Zayn nods approvingly.

“So, what’s gonna happen is,” Liam declares, looking endlessly pleased, and Harry wants to punch him a little bit, “we’re gonna lock this door, and you’re gonna sit in here for as long as it takes for you two to go back to kissing each other.”

He wants to inject that they’ve not actually kissed, but that he’d very much like to, but catches himself because it’s not the right time for that. For jokes like that. Not when Louis and him haven’t even looked at each other, and he can feel Louis gathering up the courage to move away from Harry without seeming to obvious.

“Any protests?”, Liam asks, and Harry opens his mouth, only for Liam to shake his head furiously. “Scratch that. You don’t have a say until you declare your love for each other and grow up.”

The other two nod, and Harry can’t help but shake his head at the absolute ridiculousness of this. 

They leave pretty quickly, probably to get out of the door, before he or Louis can react and run out of it first. Or rather, before Louis can react and run out of it. Because despite what Harry said, he still wants to know why Louis decided to act like he did. What demons Louis has in his head that makes him think he’s done something, or possesses something, that could ever make Harry hate him or not want to be with him.

He may be hurt right now, he may feel like this as unfair as it can get. He might feel like he deserves a million apologies for being treated this way. He might feel like Louis is acting like a child, even more immature than Harry is. But he wants to know. He wants to know what has Louis so scared that he would rather give up what he and Harry has as friends, what they could be as boyfriends, for this weird stand off-ish limbo they’re currently finding themselves in.

There doesn’t ever seem to have been a sound as loud as the click of the door lock.

He didn’t even know they could lock the door to the living room.

Louis is up in seconds after the door lock sounds, and yeah, that hurts too. That Louis can’t bring himself to sit beside Harry for anymore than he was forced to.

He starts pacing the room, intervally going over to check if the door really is locked, and every time it’s as solidly locked as before.

“Louis,” Harry sighs. Defeated.

Louis looks over at him, before testing the lock again, pulling the handle up and down. It doesn’t move more than an inch, the sound annoying and suffocating, making Harry feel like he’s imprisoned.

But he’s felt that way ever since they woke up and Louis ignored him, so it’s not that new of a sensation.

“Louis,” he tries again.

Louis doesn’t say anything, but slides down the door, like he’s finally come to terms with the fact that they’re not getting out of here, until someone actually lets them out.

And that won’t happen, not until they figure this out. Harry feels quite at peace with that, that they’re never gonna get out, because Louis looks just as closed off as the other day.

Harry sighs again, leaning back against the sofa, rubbing his temples, trying to get rid of the headache building.

“What did I do?”

He looks over at Louis, through half closed lids, not expecting an answer but just wanting to look at him. He’s not allowed himself that in a long time.

Outside, the sky is still grey, grey, grey.

Louis doesn’t say anything immediately, wets his lips, shaking his head like he’s internally debating with himself, like he wants to tell Harry but can’t, and it breaks Harry’s heart a bit. The fact that Louis is so obviously struggling with something, all by himself, that it bleeds into every corner of his life, and Harry never wants that for Louis. To feel like he’s alone. Because he’s not. Even he doesn’t want to talk to Harry, Louis has got so many who adore him. Who want the best for him.

It’s a shock, it makes Harry jump a bit, when he actually says something, voice hoarse.

“You didn’t do anything, you didn’t.”

And it sounds like he wants Harry to know that, to feel at peace with that, leave it at that, and move on.

Thing is, Harry can’t. Louis has been his focus for so long, ever since they first met, that even his dream of the stars paled in comparison. Everything compared next to Louis, if he’s being honest.

“That’s not an answer, I can accept, Louis,” Harry counters tiredly, “we were great, could have been greater, and now you can’t even look at me.”

It feels like they’re playing a tug of war, and Harry doesn’t want to participate anymore. He wants Louis to talk to him, he wants to fix this, he wants Louis back in whatever form he can get.

“I don’t know how to explain it.” Louis looks so sad, and like he’s on the verge of crying, and that makes Harry feel like crying to, even more than he’s been these last days. “I’ve never told anyone else before.”

Harry shakes his head, biting his lip, lump high in his throat.

“I want to help you, Louis,” he pleads with a hoarse voice, “but I can’t if you won’t let me.”

Louis finally looks back at him, and it’s like everything falls away, every shield Louis has had, every wall he’s built up, every glamour he’s enchanted, to make people not notice how tired and haggard he looks.

“Please, Louis.”

Louis nods, then shakes his head, and it’s such a struggle for Harry to see Louis so obviously torn, so distressed, and not even being able to comfort him, not knowing if he’s allowed.

He just wants to hold Louis, wants him to cry against Harry’s shoulder, and let out every worry and burden weighing him down.

He wants Louis to be happy, with himself, with Harry, with literally anyone in the world. He just wants Louis to be okay.

Just as he opens his mouth to plead again, to throw every inhibition, every concept of pride, and throw himself, ready to beg for Louis to just let _go_ , let Harry _in_ , Louis opens his mouth again.

“I’m not normal,” he whispers, “I’m a freak.”

Harry blinks, confused, at loss for words, and then his heart shatters, slowly comprehending, but not understanding why, what Louis is saying, telling him.

“No, Lou-”

“You can’t say no, you don’t know what I’ve done,” and now Louis looks so sick, like thinking about himself makes him want to vomit, and Harry feels breathless with this immense sadness, “what I’ve done to you.”

Harry cocks his head, not comprehending what Louis is saying to him at all.

“You don’t remember all of it,” Louis tells him, voice shaking, “but you remember the sensation. Like being drunk? Or high?”

Harry looks up, thinking of when he felt like that with Louis, quickly realising he’s talking about the date.

“The soda,” he starts, and Louis nods furiously, eyes wet.

“It weren’t the soda, that was normal soda,” he stresses, “it was me. I did it.”

“Roofied me? Or?”

Louis actually cries now, shaking his head furiously, and Harry’s entire body is itching to go to him, to hold him.

“No, no, don’t say that, I wouldn’t, you know I wouldn’t.”

Harry nods, rising from the sofa, walking slowly towards Louis, much like you approach a scared animal, because that’s what Louis is. Scared.

A scared kid, really. They’re all just kids.

Outside the rain is starting to patter down softly, mirroring Harry’s distress.

“I know, Louis, I know,” he comforts him softly, when he’s about two meters away, he sinks down into a squat, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

Louis is shaking, Harry can see that from here, his whole body shaking with the sobs he’s holding, and Harry feels so devastated, not knowing what to do. How to help.

“Tell me, Louis,” he pleads quietly, “I promise I will not hold anything against you.”

Louis bites his lip, and then buries his face in his hands, finally letting the sobs out, and it’s heartbreaking, but Harry’s also happy that Louis is letting himself feel.

Absence of feeling is even worse than anger or sadness, in Harry’s opinion. It’s not natural to keep everything locked up, one day it’ll all be let out, and it’ll be even more painful and even more catastrophic than if you let it out gradually as you feel the emotions.

Louis mumbles something, and Harry inches closer, sticking his head and ear as far out as he can without tumbling over.

“What, Louis?”

Louis shakes his head, removes his hands a bit from his face, to be able to look Harry in the eyes, and Harry smiles softly, comfortingly, encouragingly.

“I made you fall in love with me,” Louis whispers, and Harry blinks.

Yeah, he did. With his entire person, with his brightness, with his brilliant and emotional voice, with how soft he can be, supportive, and how happy he makes Harry.

He nods. “Yeah, I reckon you did.”

Why that’s a bad thing, Harry can’t bring himself to understand. Louis is the brightest thing in Harry’s life, so beautiful even know that he’s obviously sleep deprived and so full of grief, and Harry wouldn’t want anyone else.

Louis sobs again, and it’s such a hurtful sound, and Harry inches forward again, stretching out his hand, trying to get to Louis, but stopping abruptly when Louis curls himself even tighter, trying desperately to get away from Harry.

Harry holds up his hand, trying to convey that he’s not gonna touch Louis, that he comes in peace, that all he wants is to comfort Louis, make him feel comfortable, and if he does that by staying back, he will.

“You don’t get it, Harry.” His face shows nothing but heartbreak and anguish, “you’re not in love with me. You just think so because I made you think so.”

Harry doesn’t say anything because he doesn’t know what to say. What do you say to that? It sounds out of this world, but looking at the window, at the rain that he had made fall, he thinks that oh, the world is cruel.

The first time he meets someone like him, someone with powers out of the ordinary, it’s like this.

“What do you mean?”

“I can make people say things, they don’t want to. I can make people give me things, believe things, they don’t. I have a power Harry,” Louis hiccups, “just like you. That’s what you told me that day. I asked about sky, and you told me it’s not weird because you made it like that.”

Oh. The sensation. The fuzziness. The alluring tone in Louis’ voice that he’s heard before, but not quite like that, not as strong, not as enchanting.

“Louis-”

“I’m sorry, Harry, I thought staying away would make the glamour fall, but,” Louis has to break himself off because of his sobs getting out of control, “but you still think you’re in love, you still think the world of me, and that’s not real. It’s not real, Harry!”

He seems panicked, like he has to make Harry believe it, and yeah, Harry gets it. But he’s never been so sure in his life of anything being that much of a life. Louis doesn’t believe it’s a lie, obviously, is driving himself into a panic attack at the thought, but Harry knows himself.

That evening on the date where he apparently let Louis in on his deepest, darkest, most wonderful secret, he’s never felt anything like it before. He’s never felt so pulled in by Louis in that way.

Every time his attention has been captured by Louis, every time he’s caught himself in staring at Louis, all the times he’s laughed, smiled at Louis, all the times he felt himself fall in love. Those times his head were clear, like the sun. He’s never felt more in control of his feelings as when it came to Louis.

Whatever he feels for Louis, he chose that himself. He walked into love, knowingly, with his head held high.

He smiles softly at Louis. “No, love, you couldn’t.”

Louis doesn’t seem to get it, he’s still shaking furiously, tears rolling down. “Yes, Harry! I’ve done it before, made someone kiss me because I wanted to, or I didn’t know I could, but then they woke up, and got so angry. So angry, Harry.”

Louis blinks at him, tears streaming down. “And you’ll be angry too.”

Harry shakes his head, hand still held high like a peace offering, a white flag. “No, Louis. I’ve wanted to tell you about my power for ages, all your power did was take away my inhibitions. I swear, I know how I feel.”

Louis doesn’t stop crying, but he’s not denying it vocally at least, so Harry takes it as a sign to continue.

“I have known since that first day how much I would adore you, you are so bright, Louis,” Harry stops to catch his breath a bit, blinking away his tears, “you are like the sun, I know because I’ve made the sun shine as bright as I could, and it never compared to you. Nothing compares to you. I have, from the moment I saw you in that urinal.”

Louis laughs wetly, looks almost confused for a second like he hadn’t meant to, and Harry smiles at him.

“I have known that if you would let me, I’d fall in love, and give you the absolute world. What can I say to make you believe me?”

Louis looks like he’s ready to crumple again, shaking his head. “You can’t. Everything you know, I’ve tarnished with this fucking curse.”

Curse. How cruel fate, the world, God, can be to give such different powers to people. One to control the sky, the other to control people.

Only, he doesn’t think Louis’ power, like Louis has used it on people, has ever done anything that could be called forcing. All it did, as he said, was take away all the doubts, the fears, the inhibitions.

It doesn’t make it okay, not completely, that Louis made someone kiss him without their will. But Louis was a kid, a kid in love, who wanted the person he loved to love him, and maybe the other kid did, but it must have been frightening. Finding out you did something you _know_ you aren’t brave or willing to do.

He feels so bad for the little Louis and the other boy. So much heartbreak.

“Louis Tomlinson,” he starts, “we’re gonna play a game. Everything I say, you’ll say yes or no to, if you agree or not, okay?”

Louis nods, although he looks confused. Harry smiles encouragingly back at him.

“I am in love with you.”

“No- or well, I guess, you think so.”

Harry lifts his eyebrows, and Louis sighs.

“Yes.”

Harry smiles, satisfied.

“You’re the funniest person I know.”

When Louis says a confident “yes”, Harry almost laughs. Of course, Louis would think he’d have manipulated Harry into thinking he was the funniest.

“You’re the king of pranks.”

“Obviously yes.”

Harry can’t, as much as he tries, keep the smile from taking over his face, and Louis gives him a hesitant smile back.

“You’re one of the best singers I know.”

Louis looks gobsmacked, slowly shaking his head. “No? No, no, you are. Or Liam, Zayn, or Niall. I’m not.”

Harry’s hand twists at that, but he keeps going without answering.

“You, Louis Tomlinson, are so beautiful.”

Louis shakes his head again. “No.”

“You are the kindest and most supportive person.”

“Maybe? No? Your mum is pretty kind and supportive, Harry, don’t freeze her out because you’re in love.”

Harry laughs fondly, “you’re an idiot.”

“Yes.”

Harry frowns, that wasn’t one of the statements. Louis wasn’t supposed to agree to that so easily.

“You’re one of the smartest people I know.”

“No. Ask my geography teacher.”

He’ll personally fight that geography teacher for ever making Louis believe he isn’t smart or capable. That he couldn’t take over the world if he wanted to, and people would let him because power aside, Louis is the kind of person, people feel attracted to, he’s magnetic and bright.

He could take over the world, and people would thank him.

“You can do anything you set your eyes on.”

“Maybe.”

Harry doesn’t comment on that.

“You’re the brightest person I know.”

“Probably.”

“You’re perfect, with all your flaws, you’re perfect.”

“No.”

Harry takes a deep breath. “Do you remember what you said? How everything I knew about you, you’d shaped? You’d made me believe?”

Louis nods, mum.

“How come,” Harry presses his lips together, in an effort to not cry, “how come all the most important things, you don’t agree? I know you, Louis. I see you. I don’t know some image of you, you’ve projected. You’re amazing, Louis, and I love you.”

Louis looks at him like he’s the single most wonderful thing in the world, and Harry knows that’s a lie because that’s Louis.

“You-”, and Louis doesn’t seem to have anything to say, opens and closes his mouth like a fish out of water. Confused, helpless: amazed.

Harry smiles at him, hand lowering again, and Louis doesn’t flinch, doesn’t move. Follows the hand lazily, not like a caged animal, and Harry feels so warm.

“I’m gonna come closer now, okay?”

Louis just nods wordlessly, and Harry’s smile brightens even further. When he gets so close to Louis, that their knees bump, he brings his hand up to Louis’ cheek. Slowly, gently caressing it, feeling so grateful he gets to do this.

Louis up close is an even different masterpiece than he is from far away. He’s so soft, and his eyes are so bright. Especially now that the grey skies are moving out of the way, giving way for a blue, blue, blue sky and the sun. The blue sky getting clearer the brighter Louis’ eyes get in the sunlight.

“London hasn’t ever had this much sunshine,” Louis whispers, like he’s afraid he’s gonna say something wrong.

Harry hums quietly, moving his hand from Louis’ cheek to his hair, back again, tracing the other’s features. Marvelling at the fact that he gets to do this, that Louis lets him.

“Don’t think I’ve been this happy either,” he replies in the same tone, “so it all adds up.”

Louis nods wordlessly, smile getting a bit bigger, a little more real, like he’s actually beginning to believe that this is happening. That this is not a ploy, that Harry is for real, that Louis gets to have this.

And he does. And more. Harry wants to give Louis everything in the world.

“Now, Louis Tomlinson,” he whispers, smiling conspiratorially, “I’m gonna kiss you.”

Louis’ smiles always rival the sun, but this time there’s a sure winner.

No one could ever measure up to Louis in Harry’s eyes.

“What are you waiting for then, mr. Styles?”

And that’s a good point, so he leans forward and captures Louis’ lips with his own, and it feels like coming home. They’re just as soft as he thought, and they don’t yield to him, they just move in sync, like they do everything. Together, as equals.

Outside the sun shines brighter and brighter, and there’s a little warm wind in the streets of London, making people feel confused as to why they’re suddenly feeling so warm in their coats.

Harry has never felt more content, happier, more warm, as he does right now.

Niall tells him later that he’s calling dibs on best man, and Harry doesn’t have the heart to tell him that Liam already did that ages ago.

You can have two best men, no worries. Louis laughs at him when he tells him this later, cuddled up on the sofa, but also placates him with a soft smile.

“We’ll figure it out, babe.”

And that’s that sorted, in Harry’s book, so instead of worrying that, he kisses Louis again.

Life has been way better since the quality of being allowed to kiss Louis when he wants to was added to it.

And he does. When Louis has nailed a high note, instead of just smiling or hugging him, Harry runs to kiss him. When Louis makes a good dumb, Harry kisses him. When Louis is a little bit drunk, animating the crowd with big hand gestures and a story that Harry hasn’t really paid attention - he can’t stop himself from pressing kisses to his cheek, slowly getting closer to his mouth, and Louis gets so easily distracted, one second leaning into Harry, and then remembering he has a story to tell, and then he leans back to Harry, and so it goes until people get tired of their obnoxious couple-ness, and they leave them behind, and Harry feels so much better when he has Louis’ attention on him.

It’s not that his life has really changed, because they’re still best friends, there’s just the added benefits of holding Louis’ hand, kissing him when he wants to, being allowed to smiling fondly and dumbly at Louis, staring at Louis without seeming weird, and holding Louis, cuddling into him, seeking the warmth and feeling of home.

He feels so happy, or doesn’t even just think it. He knows he’s happy, so happy. Louis’ presence has always had that effect on Harry, but especially now.

They sing, and they go through, and their fan base grow, and they do it all over again the week after.

It’s such a surreal experience, girls screaming for him, to get his autograph, and there’s more girls every single week. They’re here for him, for them, and they look at them like they’re something special.

When he has to let Louis’ hand go before going out to meet them, he doesn’t feel very special at all.

He feels like the little kid back in Holmes Chapel, he feels like there’s people judging him for loving Louis, who doesn’t like him purely because of that. He feels caged, and he doesn’t know how to escape because escaping means giving up the dream they’ve fought so hard for, all of them, and are within reach.

The stars get clearer and clearer every night they go on, and the girls, the crowd, scream and vote for them.

But it’s like the closer he gets to that, the more muddled the world seems. There’s more rules to follow, and they have to follow them, because they’re essentially kids, and what do they know of the industry, and someone mentions to them in passing that the girls wouldn’t like it.

And without the girls, where would they be?

So Harry presses his lips together and lets go of Louis’ hand as they go out the door, and he’s never felt so cold and warm at the same time.

The girls, their fans, their supporters, make him feel so loved and blessed. They’re here for them, for One Direction, and no one else. They’re waiting in the cold, they’re not guaranteed to meet them, see them, but they do it anyway, and they grow in numbers every friday.

Every day, actually.

It’s overwhelming, but he feels so thankful.

He can still keep a look on Louis, so it doesn’t feel like they’ve been separated completely, even if he does wish he could decide himself when he had to let go of Louis’ hand.

But Simon and their team has been in the game for ages, they know what sells, and they know how to get One Direction to the top, to win.

And they want to win so much, they’ve got blood on their teeth, and every Friday, they feel more and more powerful, more at ease on the stage.

When Louis turns to him as they lie together on the bed, watching some movie, and whispers if Harry still thinks Louis is one of the best singers, it breaks Harry’s heart because Louis’ voice is so instrumental to their overall sound, and he can’t believe they’re letting him think he’s not.

So Harry kisses him and promises a million times that of course he does, and that they’d get kicked out if Louis wasn’t there with them. That they wouldn’t have made it past bootcamp without him, and Louis smiles at him.

Some Fridays, Louis believes him completely. Other times, his smile is a little duller, but it’s there nonetheless.

Those times Harry holds him closer.

It’s one of the last Saturdays, and they’re still here. Still in the game, with more fans than they’ve ever had before. With more engagement than any of their competitors, and Harry hasn’t stopped smiling for weeks.

But this is the day, he’s decided. They’ve been so busy, only having small movie dates here and there, and the occasional meal by themselves, but Harry hasn’t forgotten the compromise.

He gets to take Louis on their next date, and he’s not gonna let go of that.

The flowers during the winter aren’t as beautiful, as alive, as they are during the summer, but he’s pretty sure he doesn’t need to impress Louis as much as he’d originally planned back then. He feels pretty certain that he’s got Louis in the bag, and now it’s just about keeping him there.

Keeping him by Harry’s side.

Now, ideally, that would require a lot of glue and some rope and handcuffs, and Harry would practice being a koala. But it doesn’t look as brilliant on stage, so he’s gonna have to come up with something else.

He gets the other boys to distract Louis all day, employs Katie to run to the shops and buy the prettiest flower she can find, and then he gets to cooking.

Harry loves cooking, feels so at home in the kitchen, and he’s finding out, as he thinks about while stirring the pots and readying the meat, that he loves cooking for someone, that someone being Louis, even more.

He feels like a proper housewife, and he can’t stop smiling thinking about it. It makes him all excited for the future, whatever happens on the final in a few weeks, he knows that there’s a bright, bright future for him and Louis, and he can’t wait for it.

He imagines them getting a house, or maybe start with an apartment. The little house with a white picket fence, beautiful rose garden, playful dog and the sound of small feet tapping across the floor, can wait. There’s no stress.

He doesn’t see an end to them, now that they’ve found each other.

He doesn’t think Louis does either.

Katie comes back with a few minutes to spare, where he asked the boys to have Louis ready for a date, or ‘a fancy dinner’ so he doesn’t figure it out - Harry’s smart like that, and she’s brought a wonderful, perfect bouquet of daisies and white chrysanthemums, and Harry almost kisses her on the cheek in happiness, but she laughs at him and mouths ‘better not’, and he laughs thinking about Louis seeing the last time Harry used a flower with Katie in a move to charm Louis.

Yeah. Better not.

Everything’s going so splendidly, no need to mess it up with yet another miscommunication.

They had two too many before they even got together, and it’s a tradition he’s planning to leave behind. This is the new age. They’re together, and they’re gonna communicate, and they’re gonna be blessedly happy.

“Could I make you light up the candles?”, he whispers to Katie, gratefully liberating her of the bouquet, smiling at the thought of giving them to Louis.

She smiles, looking absolutely delighted.

He bought everyone pizzas to munch in their rooms, and then he spent the entire day making their living room into the most romantic room Louis is ever gonna see. Candles all around them, a beautiful white dew, and a single red rose in a vase.

And then of course, the white bouquet. That he’s gonna give to Louis as he picks him up.

As he gets ready to leave, Katie calls after him in hushed voice.

“By the way, Harry? Daisies means loyal love, and the white chrysanthemums mean happiness and a long life.”

Harry really has to restrain himself from giving her the biggest hug, swinging her around. She’s been the perfect assistant, and he feels, well without getting too choked up, he feels so lucky. So blessedly lucky, to have Louis, to have friends like Katie and the boys, to have the fans, to have the success they have.

To have his dream and seeing it get fulfilled in front of his eyes.

He doesn’t really know what he’s done to deserve it, but he wants to thank every little and big power in the universe for giving it to him anyway.

Three knocks.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

That’s what it takes for Louis to get to the door and open it, and when he does, Harry feels his breath getting taken away.

Louis hasn’t just cleaned up, he’s _dressed_ up. He’s in a white shirt, in some nice pants, and they don’t fit him, are obviously Liam’s, but he looks amazing, he looks clean, he looks elegant.

He looks beautiful.

Harry gapes for a second, and Louis seems content to just stand there, smiles softly at him, and Harry soaks in every little detail. If time stopped right now, he wouldn’t even be mad.

“Hi,” Louis greets him with a smile, and Harry bites his lips, trying to rein in his smile a little.

“Oops,” he replies, and Louis looks at him a little confused before his eyes clear, and he looks so besotted Harry himself gets all red cheeked.

“You remembered our first words!”

Harry shrugs, because yeah, what don’t you do for romance? How could he ever forget, meeting Louis had effectively changed his life. For worse in terms of heartbreak, for better in terms of getting to know what it means to be in a relationship with someone who loves you and who you love.

They haven’t actually said those words since that day, and it’s okay, because they haven’t had the boyfriend talk yet. They’re exclusive, of course they are, but that maybe has more to do with the way they’re so excluded from normal society in this house.

He hopes not, but he can’t read Louis’ thoughts about them. Judging from how he’s looking at Harry right now, though, he’d hazard the guess that they’re very much on the same page.

“You sap,” Louis sighs, looking as charmed as he could, and that’s exactly what Harry had hoped for.

He holds the flowers out to him, smiling.

“For you, my lord,” he offers gallantly, and Louis laughs, shaking his head.

“You here to make an honest man out of me?”, and it’s a loaded question, and what did Harry say about being on the same page? Yeah, they’re very much there.

As Louis takes the offered bouquet, smelling the flowers, smiling softly, studying them for a bit, Harry puts out his arm. Mirroring the first date Louis took him out on.

He’s hoping for a better morning after than that, though.

Louis takes his arm with a little bow, and Harry dimples back at him, leaning in to softly tell him: “I’m planning on it.”

Louis looks back at him, affronted, shaking his head. 

“No way, mister, no way,” and if Harry wasn’t sure where this was going, he’d be shitting bricks at that reaction, “I’m gonna make an honest man out of you. I promised first.”

Harry shrugs, smirking. “Well, should have been quicker.”

There’s a moment, a lull in the conversation, and then Harry’s brain catches up to him, and he quickly turns to Louis right as he opens his mouth, arrogant, annoying smugness evident in his entire posture as they walk down the hall.

“Harry Styles, will you be-”

He doesn’t get to finish because Harry shuts him up with a kiss, no way is Louis ruining this.

He’ll shut him up with a kiss the rest of the night until they get to the moment _Harry_ has picked out.

Maybe they’re jumping a bit into it, but Harry hasn’t ever been as happy as he’s been these past few weeks, and he’s pretty sure Louis feels the same, and whatever’s gonna be thrown at them, he knows they’ll make it through them. With Louis’ hand in his, he feels like he’s soaring.

With Louis, he’s flying, and never coming back down.

Anyone who thinks something else can, quite frankly, suck his dick. Metaphorically. The only one who’s actually allowed is, at some point when they get to it, Louis.

Asking Louis to be his boyfriend is, when it all comes down to it, just a more elegant way of telling him exactly that.

Louis tries to break the kiss a couple times, tries to mumble his way through the question, but Harry refuses to let him, stopping their already very slow walk, hands cupping the back of Louis neck, fingers slowly thumbing his jaw.

When they finally let go of each other, Louis is looking dazed, smiling at him, and Harry has a hard time actually concentrating on getting them down the living room, dining room, whatever, actually just wants to stay here and give Louis another kiss, and another, and maybe one more.

“Weren’t we going somewhere, Harold?”, Louis whispers, like it’s a secret they share, and Harry actually really loves that concept.

Some things that are just theirs to know.

He nods, lets himself stare a little more at Louis, because he’s just pretty, lets Louis cart his fingers through Harry’s hair, lets him caress Harry’s cheek, and Harry leans into the touch.

He finally understands why cats purr when petted just right.

He clears his throat, but it’s a testament to how far they’ve come that it doesn’t break the moment, they’re not hurrying anywhere, lazily walking side by side. Hands, fingers, intertwined, and he can’t stop smiling as they go. Hands swinging, hips bumping into each other, it’s all very, it’s all very sweet yeah.

“Looks delicious, Harry!”, Louis exclaims the instant they see the food Katie had put out so neatly, and then he notices the rest of the room. He twirls around himself, looking at the ocean of candles, and Harry sends out a silent bless you and thank to Katie, wherever she has gone to hide.

This is perfect, he’s done it perfectly, just like he always wanted to do. For Louis, everything should always be perfect, and if the food just tastes like he hopes it does, felt it did earlier, then he’s done it. His goal.

Feels pretty good.

“You are such a romantic,” Louis whispers, almost reverently, and well, Harry’ll take it.

He’s loved love since he saw his first Disney movie when he was a kid, so it’s not really a surprise, and Louis knows he’s a romantic, teases him at least once on weekly basis. If he says something ridiculous, twice. This, though, is the first time Louis has sounded emotional about the fact, and Harry can’t help but smile even more at that.

“Do you wanna sit down?”, and when Louis nods, he goes to, he is a gentleman, draw one of the chairs out for Louis who rolls his eyes, but doesn’t comment on it, which in and of itself is a testament to how well Harry has done. Normally Louis would be all up in arms, being pampered like this, accept it with a smirk and smart comment, but today. Nothing.

It’s gonna be a good date.

And it is. Conversation is flowing, as always, between them, and Louis looks so radiant in the soft yellow candle light, and it feels like they’re in another, just for tonight. Just them. No stress of the X-Factor, no yelling housemates of which there aren’t that many left, no fans, no no one shouting down their necks or telling them what to do or giving them advice that isn’t an advice but a command to let go of each other’s hands.

Here Harry can reach across the table, and Louis will meet him halfway there, Here Louis can play with Harry’s fingers while regaling hilarious tales, the finger playing a substitute for his normal big arm gestures.

Harry finds he likes this better. The low volume stories, like Louis has catered them to fit Harry, like they’re just for Harry.

Louis’ eyes are warm and bright, and his laugh is beautiful when Harry tells his stupid jokes, and here, where there’s no one else, Louis doesn’t call him out on how bad they are, even if Harry can see it in the twitches in Louis’ smile, the shaking of his head as he laughs, like he doesn’t want to, doesn’t want to think they’re funny.

It’s nice, it really is. It feels like a breather. It feels like everything they’ve been missing, wanting.

He’s so grateful for everything, thanks God every day when he goes to bed for the opportunity, but for this, he’s even more. Them just being together is such a gift.

He doesn’t even know what the clock is, when he clears his throat, sits up straight and tries to quell his nerves. Their hands are still wrought tightly together, and Louis is smiling softly, like he knows what’s coming, and is trying to give Harry some of his courage.

Harry is so grateful for Louis too. Always will be, he thinks, no matter what. Getting to be with Louis, getting to meet the world, reach the stars - so close they are, with Louis, is a dream, he didn’t even he had when he was younger, come true.

“Go on, love,” Louis whispers, foot nudging Harry’s, and he smiles at him.

“I don’t even know why I’m nervous, “ he laughs, trying to conceal that he is actually proper nervous that everything’s just been banter. There’s a difference between knowing it’ll all go well, and actually being in the situation where you need everything to go well.

Louis does a minute shake of his head. “No need at all, love, I can answer now, if you want to be sure before you ask.”

Harry really wants to cry because how did he get so lucky, this doesn’t happen to people. You don’t get live your dreams and meet your love at the same time, on the same show, without having to pick or leave them behind.

You just don’t.

Except that they did, didn’t they. 

They’re lucky beyond measure, and he’s not gonna waste a single second of that luck, takes a deep breath, and like so many times, he jumps out from the cliff.

“Do you want to be my boyfriend, Louis Tomlinson?”

And Louis smiles at him, squeezes his hand tightly in his and says, simple as that, “yes, I will, Harry Styles.”

Outside there’s a blaze of light, lighting up the entire sky despite it being late into the evening, if not even the night, and Louis jumps a bit, sees the world turn darker, go from yellow to orange to pink to lilac to blue.

He shakes his head, presses his lips back like he can’t deal with how dramatic Harry is.

“I told you,” he laughs, “such a fucking sap.”

Harry nods enthusiastically. “Your sap, though.”

And that’s that.

When they get to the room they share with the other boys, out of sheer habit, there’s a paper on the door: ROOM’S ALL YOURS, TAKE CARE OF IT and a lewd smiley, and Louis barks a laugh when he sees it.

“Cheeky fuckers,” he swears while ripping the paper down, turning around to Harry, sticking the paper out, “wanna save that? You are a sucker for old memories.”

He hadn’t thought about, but just to annoy Louis because he’s obviously joking, he nods sagely. 

“Of course, hand it over.”

Louis does with an eye roll before opening the door.

Inside there’s a candle lit with a rose, and it’s so low effort, but they _did_ it anyway, and it’s so touching, and despite what everything is obviously leading up, Harry kinda wants to cry with how sweet their friends are.

“They’ve really made up the honeymoon suite, haven’t they?”, Louis comments the moment he sees the candle and rose, and Harry turns around to look at him with a little, shaky smile.

He doesn’t know why he’s so nervous, maybe it’s because they’ve so carefully tip-toed around the subject, this specific one. They’ve done numerous innuendos, but they’ve never actually discussed if any of them wants to, when they want to, and that puts Harry on edge. He needs to be told, he needs it written, he needs to absolutely know for sure what Louis wants because he doesn’t want to overstep, assume wrong.

He doesn’t want to look desperate or like a prude, and he doesn’t want to look as incompetent, as inexperienced as he is.

It’s not like he doesn’t know how it works because of course he does, but detached videos are so much different from the reality, this reality where they’re just looking at each other, almost sizing each other up, where it’s uncomfortable, where they don’t know anything about each other.

Harry wants this, he wants this so much, and more than anything he wants it with Louis, wants to experience every little thing with Louis, learn his own body, learn every little mole and creak in Louis’ body. He wants to make Louis moan, and he wants to suck and bite his skin, and he wants to know what Louis likes, what makes him breathless, what makes his hand tighten, what makes him plead and beg.

He wants everything, wants to learn everything, and he wants all of it only with Louis.

And he thinks he can see all that reflected back in Louis’ face, but he doesn’t _know_.

Louis carefully steps forward, hand outstretched, an offering for Harry to take or ignore, and Harry feels so uncomfortable really, because he wants it all, but he also wants Louis and him to know they’re on the same page with this.

But he doesn’t step back as Louis continues to move forward, not like a carnivore stalking its prey, but a little like a siren, a nympho. Like a boyfriend wanting to get it on with his boyfriend.

Louis puts his hands on Harry’s hips, squeezes, and puts his head down in the crook of Harry’s neck, breath hot on his skin.

“We don’t have to do anything, Haz,” he reassures him, “we can cuddle for a bit, sleep, and we’ll figure it all out.”

Harry’s still more focused on the way Louis’ hands stroke up and down on his body, the electricity running beneath his skin, like there’s lightning in Louis’ hands. He shivers every time Louis breathes, his breath going hitched.

Trying to keep himself under control, he nods. 

“Yeah, let’s ehm,” swallow, “let’s wait, yeah?”

Louis smiles against his neck, glides his arms all the way around him, turning the sensual hold into a full on hug, and Harry is so grateful, feels himself relax against Louis, circling his body as well.

“Let’s do that, love,” Louis whispers, presses small kisses to Harry’s neck, and Harry is just really so thankful to have him. To have Louis as his _boyfriend_.

They get stripped down, the tense mood evaporating after they’ve thrown their clothes at each other, laughter bright between them, and Harry feels so much better, and he’s just really looking forward to his first night with Louis all alone.

Sure, they’ve fallen asleep together on the couch when they’ve watched movies long into the AM, and they’ve slept in a bed together when the boys have all been there, but they’ve never been alone like this.

It’s a bit daunting, but he’s most of all just really, really excited, can’t wait to be held close, burrow into Louis’ warmth, hold him close.

As they lie down, and Louis holds his arms open for Harry, he feels so fond, so happy, and so cared for, and he says it a lot, but he really is so lucky.

“Thank you,” he whispers, and Louis immediately shakes his head like his life depends it.

“Don’t ever thank me for respecting your boundaries, love, okay?”

He nods, kisses Louis, and the other quietly hums against Harry’s lips, hand sliding up to cup Harry’s head, fingers tangling with his curls, lightly playing with them.

It’s a sweet kiss, not meant to lead to anything, but to convey adoration and gratitude, and Louis slowly draws back, eyes blue and bright looking into Harry’s. He smiles, moves his hand down to cup his jaw, thumb gliding over Harry’s lips, gives them another peck and then settles down a little distance between them, like he’s saying. We’re not doing anything, don’t worry.

“Goodnight, love”

Harry smiles, hums contentedly. “Good night.”

It’s not that it’s uncomfortable, lying with Louis, and it’s not because he feels any pressure.

But maybe he does feel something crinkling in the air, the way he can’t quite settle down, feels his breathing is too loud, too uncontrolled, breath hitching, and he tries to make it quieter but that just makes it even more forced.

Louis’ hand slowly glides up and down Harry’s arm, and that doesn’t really help, and he wants to move, but he doesn’t want to reject Louis, and he’s still not sure he wants to do anything.

Everything feels suspended, and he wonders why these moments aren’t ever filmed, these moments of confusion, these moments of doubt and insecurity and self consciousness. It’s driving him mad.

Harry finds Louis other hand, holds it close. Louis twirls their fingers together, thumb caressing his handback.

After what could have been just a minute, or been ten minutes, it’s like this is limbo, time doesn’t exist, Louis stops his hands’ movements, and Harry immediately misses them, doesn’t want them to stop, so he starts caressing Louis’ hand back, and he tries to keep his breathing controlled because it feels like it’s building up to something.

It starts sweet, gentle and hesitated touches here and there, a playful tug of rope among the two of them, but instead of drawing back, they each reciprocate the other’s touch, getting closer, and closer, until they’re as close as they when they kissed, and it’s so, it’s not uncomfortable but he’s so self conscious, and he feels like there’s a string between them, being drawn tighter and tighter, and the thing is, he doesn’t know when it’ll snap. Doesn’t know what is gonna be the last drop in the glass.

It starts slow, so tenderly slow, with hands getting dauntier and dauntier, and them inconspicuously trying to inch closer to each other without actually moving all the way. It starts slow, it starts with hesitation and insecurity, it starts with wandering hands and gentle touches.

It starts slow, and then it snaps.

Louis moves forward, right into Harry’s open arms. It’s not a dirty kiss, but it’s definitely more hurried, more lustful than any of their other kisses, and he finds he’s really enjoying it, fingers immediately tugging themselves into his hair, curling around the long, soft strands.

“Do you want to go further, Harry?”, Louis whispers, breath caught.

He nods, because he has a panting Louis leaning over him, his lips are wet from their kiss, and he’s sure that he and the entire world is painted in red, a furious blush, a need coursing through his bloodstream. 

“Yeah, yeah,” he gasps, hands going up to hold Louis’ hips close, “just have, have patience?”

Louis smiles, nose rubbing from side across Harry’s. 

“We’re gonna go as slow, as you need,” and then he leans down to capture Harry’s lips again, and Harry hasn’t felt this alive ever before.

They sing, and they win, and they sing, and they win, and they sing, and they lose.

He’s not proud of it, Harry, he’s really not, but there was a second, not even a second, in the middle of the hurt and disappointment, in between feeling like crying and yelling how unfair it was and the stars fading in his mind, there was a moment where he breathed a sigh of relief when One Direction’s name wasn’t called.

In that very short moment, all he could think about was no more people telling him when to stop holding Louis’ hand.

Losing hurts. It does. It hurts because they’re still surrounded by the very building in which they watched their dreams unfold in front of them, in which they won week after week, in which they sung and won the hearts of so many, and it’s over. Just like that.

It hurts because he had let himself believe that the stars were so close, and they’d be able to reach them. They’d reach them, and he’d have Louis, and they’d experience the world together, and it might have been such a naive dream, and he should’ve thought differently but it was so easy getting caught up, being swept along by the excitement, by the screaming fans and them having such a smooth run throughout the show.

Realistically, he should have doubted. But, he didn’t really.

Not until their dreams shattered.

Louis holds him close when they get backstage, rocks him back and forth, whispering words of comfort into his hair, telling him of all the wonderful things they still have yet to experience, how they could go on interrail, how they could go to uni after Louis redoes his A levels, and how they could still play gigs with the boys. Their fans probably weren’t gonna abandon them all in one night, and they could maybe pull some gigs at the local pubs before they’d eventually have to go home.

Maybe they could get picked up for a demo from another label, if they’re really lucky.

He doubts it, though. They’ve been lucky from the start, stuff like that doesn’t last forever, it runs out more quickly than anyone would like.

“You were brilliant,” Harry whispers back to Louis, wanting him to know, understand, “you were so amazing throughout it all. You _made_ us One Direction, Louis.”

He pushes back a little, looking at the other boys, everyone’s faces red and blotched, eyes red rimmed, tears running down their cheeks.

He wants them all to understand. Because the media doesn’t seem to, and he’s fucking tired of it, has been since the start.

“You all made One Direction, you made our sound,” and he has to pause a bit, because there’s a lump in his throat, and he doesn’t want to cry, “Liam, you took care of us, made us get serious, taught us exercises to do right from the start so we could learn to control our voices, blend together with each other. Zayn, your voice and charisma is unprecedented, nothing would have worked without you. Niall, god, your ah’s in Viva la Vida-”

Niall cracks a laugh, flipping him off. “Oi fuck off, Hazza.”

Harry smiles through the tears. “You’re amazing, Niall. Your guitar skills, unmatched, your personality - unmatched, your attitude - unmatched. Thank you for keeping us grounded, you know? In the middle of all the craziness, You are so talented, Niall, all of you, and I’ve been honoured to stand on that stage with you so many times.”

There’s a moment of silence, before Zayn clears his throat and wipes his eyes and nose, nodding to himself, before stretching out his arms.

“Come on, lads, bring it in.”

Group hugs with these boys, with One Direction, were always so different. They felt like home, safety, comfort. In a different way than being with Louis, being with these boys, all five of them gathered together, it felt like being home with his family. These boys were his family.

They each hold each other tight, no one letting go, either because letting go is a horrible metaphor for what might happen, and because here, in their little circle, they can cry, and grief for their dreams and hopes, and they’re together, they’re together in all the emotions, and no one’s judging them.

“It’s been a blast, lads,” Louis tells them, and they each raise their heads, smiling wetly at each other.

“Really, really thankful for you all,” Niall says, sounding choked up, and Harry itches to get to other side of the circle to give him a hug, “you gave me a home so far away from it, and you, ehm, you gave me a shot at my dream.”

“When I turned sixteen,” Liam took over, voice low, old hurt evident, “no one came to my birthday party. But you all, you took me in, you know? You made me one of yous, and I, ehm, I’m really glad you put up with me in the beginning. For making me see, success ain’t nothing if you don’t have your friends.”

Zayn presses a little kiss to Liam’s cheek, and it’s so soft, and Harry can feel Louis’ hand squeeze his shoulder.

“I wasn’t going to go, on the audition day,” Zayn admitted, and Harry’s eyebrows raise a bit. He hadn’t told them that before. “Didn’t want to, didn’t think it’d be worth it. I wasn’t gonna cut it, anyway. I didn’t wanna ridicule myself, you know? Everyone was watching, my family, my friends, and I was gonna humiliate me, and them, for nothing. But my mum forced me, and I’m so happy. You gave me the chance to find out what it means to be among the stars, thank you for that.”

Harry is up next, and he takes a deep breath. Doesn’t know how to phrase it properly, as well as the other boys.

“I grew up in Holmes Chapel, very small town, small people, small minds, there,” Harry took a breath, shot Louis a little look and got a comforting smile in return. He could do it. “All my life, all I knew was that me being me was wrong. It wasn’t anything my friends would ever accept, they laughed at a couple like me getting beat up. I always hoped to get out, go to a bigger city with bigger minds, and maybe get to touch the stars. And you guys made it all possible, and you respected and loved and accepted me, and I don’t know, I, ehm, I don’t know how to thank you enough for that.”

Louis cradles the side of Harry’s head, nudging it closer to him, kissing his temple when his head gets close enough, letting his lips linger, whispering simple words of comfort, and Harry mostly relaxes again. Letting Louis know by squeezing his hip gently, the hand that’s wound around Louis’ waist.

Louis clears his throat. “So this’s been emotional, huh? I just want to say thank for making me believe in myself a bit more, with never getting solos and that, it felt I wasn’t good enough. But you’ve never let me believe that for more than a second, unprompted told me how important I am, how good I sound, and I, yeah, thank you, lads.”

They stand in silence, soaking in the memories of everything they’ve been through, of the good times, the bad times, the easy times, the hard times. From the beginning to the end.

It’s all been worth it. 

They’ve grown, they’ve experienced something very few get to do, and they’ve done it all together.

They can be proud, he thinks, of what they accomplished. 

It doesn’t end there.

It’s only the beginning.

And in the midst of the excitement, of the joy, of the rebirthing of their dreams, and so many, many emotions and thoughts running through his mind. In the midst of being promised a contract, a career, in the midst of Louis kissing him, and Niall giving him the biggest hug, and Harry being so shocked that he doesn’t actually understand what’s happening until all the boys are yelling.

In the midst of it all, of so much good, of their luck being even bigger than they thought, there’s a single, fleeting moment.

A moment of disappointment, of dread, of regret.

In the middle of it all, there’s a single, solitaire moment where Harry doesn’t want to say yes, where he grips Louis’ hand tight like the second the moment they take the offer Simon’s given them - someone’s gonna rip them apart. Someone’s gonna say hand holding isn’t a good idea, isn’t gonna please the girls, and he feels ill.

No one is gonna tear them apart.

He won’t let them. So he grips Louis’ hand tight, kisses him with fervor and the promise of holding him close from this day until the end, and he does it all in front of Simon, and when he gets eye contact with Louis, he sees the same defiance mirrored in his boyfriend’s eyes.

They’re gonna say yes, but they’re not going down, not without a fight, not without a war.

They go home, and it’s weird, because the home they left behind feels foreign. It looks exactly the same, and that feels weird when they’ve all changed so much. When they’ve experienced so much, when they’ve accomplished so much, are gonna go on to hopefully do even more.

He left Harry Styles, and he came back a completely different Harry Styles. He came back national heartthrob, the dream guy, and he came back with a boyfriend, he came back with confidence.

He left hopeful, and he returns accomplished. He returns more himself than when he left.

His mum kisses him on the cheeks several times, holding him close, like she’s afraid he’s gonna leave again, and he can’t blame her.

That’s how he felt when he said goodbye to Louis.

He’s missed home, he’s missed being with his family, just them, no pressure, and he feels scared that he’s gonna leave it again. That they’re actually gonna go somewhere with One Direction, and it’s gonna be a struggle, a battle, but they’re gonna be in it together.

It’s gonna be worth it.

Harry goes to Louis’ after Christmas, and he, quite frankly, never wants to be away from Louis for that long ever again.

Running to meet him feels like running to safety, to home, and he feels almost like shedding a little tear when they embrace, and Louis lifts him up, swings him around a little.

“God, I missed you,” he whispers, and Harry tightens his arms around Louis’ neck, almost like he’s trying to syphon Louis’ warmth and feeling of safety.

He’s not quite sure how long they stand in each other’s arms, just enjoying the feel of having the other with them again, and Harry feels a sense of dread at the thought of actually having to let go. He tightens his grip subconsciously, and he can feel Louis’ lips into a big smile where he’s pressed against Harry’s coat.

“Don’t want to be away from you,” Harry admits, glad that he can’t see Louis’ reaction, feels a little naked admitting it. That he doesn’t feel entirely whole without Louis by his side, his laugh, stupid comments, jokes, and his many stories. Without being able to brush his hand against Louis’ hand, leg, shoulder, arm, waist, hair.

Without being able to hold him close at night.

“We’re together now, babe,” Louis reminds him, comforts him, and Harry feels all giddy, because yeah, they are.

They’re together, and their mums let them reunite the moment the formal traditions surrounding Christmas, and they’re gonna spend the time through New Year’s together. And they’re gonna stay together until they’ve been invited, with their parents, to discuss the future of One Direction with the rest of the boys some time early January.

It’s a bit daunting to look ahead and see in his future, all the responsibilities that’s gonna come with being signed to a label, building their brand, but then he remembers everything else, and it’s like the worries all fade away. Because thinking about what it means, what it entails, is so incomprehensible, so earth-shattering, humbling, exciting, wonderful, astronomical.

They’ve been chosen by Simon, by their _fans_ , and they’re being given opportunities people only dream about, kids dream about and then later gives up because it’s so virtually unheard of; normal children auditioning and embarking on an absolute fairytale.

They’re gonna be recording their own music, they’re gonna be making their own album, they’re gonna have a tour, they’re gonna do so much.

It’s all in the future, it’s all uncertain, but Simon’s smile when he offered them the opportunity said pretty loudly that he was hopeful, that he was sure they were gonna go far.

He doesn’t think Simon would have offered them the deal if they weren’t someone he could see go far. They didn’t win, obviously the nation didn’t believe in them enough to give them the prize. But Simon did. Believed in them enough to invest.

It was daunting, it was new, it was an adventure. It was the dream. 

They do eventually let go, and they do eventually get home to Louis’ house. The house is the definition of home, and Harry loves it the moment he walks through the door, the smell of Christmas cookies and warmth and family hitting him, and he looks back at Louis with an excited smile that’s returned easily.

“They’re really excited,” Louis tells him conspirationally, “but I told them to wait in the living room. When they’re home, they can get a bit, no sense in scaring you away as soon as possible.”

Harry shakes his head, smile as bright as can be. “Not possible.”

Louis sneaks an arm around Harry’s waist, presses himself close, and Harry lets him without hesitation, leans his head against Louis’ shoulder.

Pressing a kiss to Harry’s hair, or even sniffing it - Louis got a new habit just before the final, to bury his face in Harry’s hair when they were cuddling, telling him how good his shampoo always smelled, and Harry couldn’t stop giggling, feeling so fond of his ridiculous boy, and maybe also trying to cover up how pleased he was with any and all compliment that Louis ever bestows upon him.

Which, frankly, are quite a lot. Louis likes a lot, and that too can make Harry feel all liquid, just like the thought of Louis being his does.

He’s just very easy when it comes to Louis, when he thinks about. Has been since they met.

Louis lets him go, leads him through the house with a light hand on his waist, and Harry feels like a magnet, drawn to Louis and wherever he wants to go. It feels safe letting Louis lead him.

Meeting the Tomlinsons in their own home is an experience, to say the least, but the smile hasn’t Harry’s face for the entire time, and he laughs harder than he’s done most days at home, and he feels so utter charmed and intimidated, but also at home with, the entire family.

He keeps locking eyes with Louis and seeing him with his younger siblings, watching him make conversation, play along with their games, and letting them put hair elastics and clippers in his hair, him letting them with an indulgent smile, he feels so fond, so in love. He hasn’t said I love you to Louis, and he didn’t know when he wanted to, but watching him with his family, so open and carefree and caring, he wants to let Louis know how much he loves him, how much he wants with Louis. He wants everything with Louis, the enduring love, the family, the house with a white picket fence, the children, the bad times, the sad times, the sickness, the good times, the happy times, all the joyous moments that can’t be categorized, the everyday moments of waking up to Louis.

He wants a life with Louis.

He stares a little at Louis, wants to preserve this memory, feeling so happy, so fond, so close to tears at watching Louis with children. Wants to preserve this moment, how much he wants, wants, wants a family with Louis, to see him play with their own little children, wants their own daughters to put all sorts of different accessories in Louis’ hair, and Louis letting them, even helping them with adjusting it, and Harry feels so blessed.

He can’t wait for the future.

Of them all, Louis’ mum is the most charming, the most wonderful, and Harry feels so enchanted by her. He had met her on the X-Factor of course, but there’d always been so much going on, not enough time for him to even have enough time to catch him with his own family, much less getting to know someone new. 

She’s beautiful, so kind, and it’s so obvious how much Louis loves her, they have little inside jokes, and they banter like they’re friends, and Harry could watch them as a fly on the wall without ever getting bored.

She doesn’t want him helping in the kitchen, tries to make Louis make Harry sit down and enjoy being the guest, but after Harry almost fell on his knees pleading, she smiled warmly and stretched out her hand to him.

“Alright then, mister, let’s go cook some lasagna.”

It turns into a full blown tea club, Louis making sure to make their cups of tea to perfection, and Harry feels so giddy at Louis taking care of him. Louis’ mum smiles fondly at them, especially when Harry wanders off mid-sentence because Louis is making silly faces at his baby sisters, or helping them with something, and Harry gets hit by vision after vision of their own family sometime in the future.

“You’re a good one,” she tells him, almost like a secret, and he looks at her with wide eyes, a disbelieving smile.

“You think so?”

She looks at him stunned before laughing. “I wanted my son to find someone who adored him,” she claps Harry gently on the cheek, smiling warmly, “and you dear adore him almost as much as me, if not more.”

He almost wants to say that’s not possible, because what Louis and her have is special, but he doesn’t. She’s giving him a compliment, and he’s been raised to just accept it instead of fighting it, and it’s not, it’s not a bad thing being told by your future mother-in-law - he is sure of it - and you don’t argue with mothers in law.

He learned that from TV. You just don’t. Mothers in law, they’ve got the power until that ring is put on your spouse’s finger, and that’s how it should be, if he’s honest. He wouldn’t walk down any aisle, would sign any city hall paper, if his mum wasn’t looking at him with a happy, proud, excited and teary look. If his mum didn’t trust his future spouse, if she was something he didn’t, he wouldn’t commit to anything that serious.

His mum, his sister, his dad, his stepdad, his family - they have to improve whoever’s he’s bringing into it.

And they love Louis. He’s not thinking about bringing anyone else but Louis into his family.

Knowing that Louis’ mum actually, really, believes that Harry is good enough, that his love is showing, and she believes it, she believes in him, in them, that feels so good.

He looks at her with a little smile that’s shaking due to how emotional it’s making him, her seeing his love for Louis and being happy for them, and she stretches out her arms, hands waving at him to come closer.

“I love your son,” he whispers, and she holds him a little tighter.

“I can see that,” she tells him just as hushed, “you should tell him.”

Louis comes back into the kitchen a few minutes later, when they’ve gone back to drinking tea and cutting vegetables for the salad, their conversation coming easily. Her telling him how exciting to watch them all grow better and closer each week, how proud she is of Louis, and how happy she is that he had Harry. She tells him stories of little baby Louis, and Harry can’t stop smiling at the thought of the little, sweet child that grew into his boyfriend, the boy he loved.

He tells her of Holmes Chapel, of his sister that he always admired and wanted to be just amazing as. He tells her about his mum, and she smiles widely, telling him how much she loved Anne, how wonderful she was when they met, and Harry feels such immense warmth at the thought of their families already having become intertwined like this.

Their mums loving each other, Jay tells him how they’d swapped recipes and as far as he knows - that’s how you become friends as adults, their sisters swapping histories and make up tips and having fun. He thinks it’s a special kind of wonderful, that Louis and him found each other, and their families all approve, and their families being so open, so supporting, and are all so genuinely kind and funny.

He still doesn’t know what he’s ever done to deserve all this, but it’s especially these quiet moments that get to him. That he can have this and everything else, it’s really nice. Really nice.

Louis comes back looking a little dishelved, his hair looking a bit more like a bird’s nest, and it’s giving Harry flashbacks that are really, really not appropriate having when he’s standing so close to Louis’ mum, so to distract him from Louis’ appearance, he focuses on his eyes, the brightness in them that is there because he’s so happy to be with his sisters, and it’s so beautiful, and Harry can’t resist going over there, give him a quick kiss on the cheek and enveloping him in a hug.

“Hey you,” Louis says, sounding as happy as he appears, “you holding up okay?”

Harry nods against Louis’ shoulder, more than alright.

“Missed you,” he says because it’s the truth. He misses Louis every time he’s not there, really.

Louis releases him, gives his lips a quick peck, and when Harry turns back to his chopping board, he’s pretty sure his cheeks are flaming.

They kissed. In front of his mum, and only his mum, in Louis’ childhood kitchen. He doesn’t know why, but it feels more intimate, more real than so many other of their kisses.

Maybe it’s because this is the real world, and the X-Factor had felt like a dream.

Jay’s smiling at them, though, and Harry feels so happy in this moment. This little moment right here, quiet and so familiar, even though it’s all new.

He can’t wait until it’s just everyday.

When they get to bed, hours later after an impromptu movie night facilitated by Louis’ sisters, there’s a quiet sense of peace in Harry. It’s just been so nice, so easy being with his family, lying in the sofa all cuddles up in the sofa like it was nothing, just everyday life, feeling Louis’ hands go up and down his arm, absentmindedly while focused on the movie.

It felt like a dream come true. Sometimes he forgets how this is his life, a life he gets to enjoy and share with Louis, and he gets warm all over again.

“So.” Louis breaks the silence, not looking exactly insecure or nervous, but definitely not just curious. “How’s it been? Your first day in the Tomlinson stable?”

“Absolutely wonderful,” Harry tells him, going over to hug him, leaning his cheek against Louis’, “your family’s wonderful, you’re wonderful. It’s been wonderful.”

He can feel Louis relax, and he rubs his back a little, to tell him that there’s nothing to get relieved or relaxed over. He needn’t doubt, Harry was always gonna love it here.

Louis’s here after all.

“Lots of wonder,” Louis remarks, and Harry laughs before angling his face so he can press small pecks against Louis’ cheek, humming agreeably.

“You know,” Louis continues, as Harry’s kisses move from the cheek, down to his mouth, “I’ve been thinking about what we are gonna do while you’re here, and-”

Harry cuts him off, which really is rude, with a kiss, so it’s alright, gently pressed to Louis’ lips.

Drawing back a little, Harry whispers, “do tell me, my good sir.”

“You’ve got some kind of regency era kink, I swear,” Louis tells him, but he doesn’t look entirely annoyed it, so Harry just accepts it with a nod and a shrug, like a ‘I’ll take it’ I’ll take it. “So I was thinking, the girls were pretty sad it didn’t snow this year, so-”

Harry looks up from where he’s been trailing kisses up and down Louis’ neck. “Yeah?”

“What are you doing?”

Harry hums non committedly, hands wandering up and down Louis’ waist, lips pressing sweet, sweet kisses, not breaking skin contact between them, up and down the side of Louis’ neck.

“Nothing, keep going.”

Louis takes a shuddering breath, his grip on Harry tightening, maybe in warning, Harry doesn’t know. Doesn’t really care. Not right now.

It’s not something he’s used to yet, the intimate part of their relationship. It’s not that he feels uncomfortable, he’s always comfortable with Louis, but he doesn’t feel very skilled, and he wants to make it so good for Louis so he very rarely actually initiates it. He’s always eager to respond when Louis does, but this, the seduction, the foreplay before the actual foreplay, is something he’s not practiced in.

Getting small whimpers out of Louis, inbetween Louis listing his plans, when Harry’s hands travel down to his arse, kneads it a bit before traveling back up his waist, going inside his shirt.

He returns to look directly at Louis, presses his lips against Louis’, effectively cutting him off.

“You know what, babe,” he whispers against his lips, “I think I actually have a better plan for tonight at least.”

Louis agrees with glazed over eyes, and Harry smiles proudly, feeling warm at being able to affect his boy in this manner, get this reaction out of him.

Before he gives in completely, though, Louis takes one last stand.

“Can you make it snow?”

“Yes, yes,” Harry agrees impatiently, motioning with his arms for Louis to come back, “there’ll be an entire snowstorm just for your girls.”

Louis looks immensely pleased with himself when he leans back in.

The next days pass in a blur of kisses, of cuddles, of giggles, cozy night ins, snow ball fights, building snowmen, skating. It feels like one never-ending winter wonderland, and he’s with Louis, and he feels so content.

He never wants time to move on from this, if he’s being honest.

Louis’ smile when they’re teaming up against his sisters is so joyful, so free, so open, and Harry could stare at it for hours. He would too, if Louis’ sisters didn’t have such good aim. One second out of focus, and he’d be hit with a snowball in the face.

And not like gently. Louis’ sisters don’t hold back, they throw as hard as they can. Little devils, they are, and he’d maybe be a bit annoyed if they weren’t so sweet.

And they are sweet. They’re funny and they fill the evenings with such joy because they don’t hold back, they think of a game and everyone must join in. It’s really nice, and Harry wouldn’t want it any other way. He tells Louis that every time he subtly reminds Harry that he doesn’t need to play with them all the time. 

Louis’ smile whenever Harry tells him he loves playing with his sister, is unparallelled. 

New Year’s Eve feels like the calm before the storm, and though it fills Harry with dread and uncontrolled butterflies, he’s dedicated to make this night the best for Louis. He’ll use the entire night reminding Louis in every single way he can possibly think of, that whatever happens, come hell or high water, Harry is Louis’ for as long as Louis wants him.

No matter what is waiting for them in the coming year, they’ll face it together. It’s maybe a bit foolish, a bit naive, but he feels like that as long as they’re together, nothing will be able to drag them down.

“What do you wish for in the New Year?”, Louis whispers when it’s close to midnight.

“Me?”, Harry tilts his head, considering, “happiness with you.”

Louis smiles beautifically at him, cheeks tinted red - which could be the cold, but Harry ignores that - and eyes shining.

“What about you?”

“So many things,” he tells him, looking at him softly, “happiness, success, so much, but I think, what I want most, is you. Just you. Any moment with you is something I will be looking forward to.”

Harry laughs fondly. “Just had to step me up, huh?”

“Just a bit.”

“Fucker.” 

But he says it smilingly, adoringly, maybe lovingly. He doesn’t think anyone’s ever said ‘fucker’ more fondly in the history of humankind.

They spend the next hour talking mindlessly, about everything between earth and heaven, big and small. Harry loves these moments the most maybe, where they just talk, make each other laugh, there’s no reason to it other than how much they both being in each other’s company. It’s easy, laid back, it’s everything he’s ever wanted when he’s thought about love when he was younger.

Someone who’s your best friend, your biggest cheerleader, biggest supporter, who makes your heart race, and someone you’ll never get tired of exploring, of listening to, of going through life with.

Someone you love. Quite simply.

It’s almost midnight, and they’ve been looking at the stars for a bit, just pointing out the few constellations they know, spending the rest of the time bullshitting them.

“That’s the mermaid. See the those five stars? That’s the tail.”

“The mermaid?”

“The mermaid. Beloved and worshipped since Ancient Greece.”

“You’re so full of shit.”

And that’s how it continues, from classics such as the frog - “that’s you, Harry!” - to lesser known constellations, but no less loved, such as the Lambo and the football, and they might be a little drunk at this point, but it doesn’t really matter. 

Harry’s head is pleasurably buzzed, and he can’t stop giggling at Louis’ jokes that only get worse as the night progresses, and Louis is definitely drunk because he’s laughed at Harry’s jokes all evening and never once pointed out how bad they were. And they were, or the last ones were at least, when Harry wanted to test how bad they had to be for Louis to comment on it. So far, none had been bad enough, apparently.

“You drunk?”, Harry whispered, trying to not break the calm atmosphere around them.

Louis looks back at him with red cheeks, eyes just small slits, and lips curved in a lazy, pleased smile. “Drunk in love.”

Harry giggles again. “You’re awful.”

Louis shakes his head, looking so damn pleased with himself. “No, I’m not.”

Harry smiles at him before leaning over to give him a kiss. “No, no, you’re not.”

It’s almost midnight, when Harry looks over at Louis to find him already looking at Harry. They sit in silence, and just before the stroke of midnight, Louis whispers.

“I wish it was snowing.”

And then the clocks resound throughout the city, and fireworks are going off, painting the sky in colour, and Louis reaches out to Harry, kisses him, and it’s full of promises and hope and love - Harry is pretty sure - and when they part, smiles soft, eyes fond, a tiny little snowflake floats down between them, and they both, slowly, look up.

Coloured by the seemingly eternal stream of fireworks, a little steady stream of snow falls down towards them.

It looks like falling rainbows, and he almost gets tears in his eyes, heart warm, and he looks at Louis. He’s still looking at the sky, lips parted in wonder, smile soft, eyes bright.

He looks so beautiful.

“I love you,” Harry whispers, and Louis looks at him quickly, eyes widened in shock at first, and Harry panics for a second, and then Louis is kissing him.

He can’t stop smiling into the kiss, and neither can Louis, and when they part, just enough to be able to look each other in the eyes, Louis says it back.

“I love you.”

He takes Louis’ hands in his, thinks he’s never going to let go, even if they force him to. He might physically let go, but no matter what anyone says. He’s going to keep Louis, and Louis will hopefully keep him, and that’s what matters.

There’s a lot waiting for them in the New Year, especially after the X-Factor tour is done, but with Louis by his side, he’s pretty sure he’s ready for it all.

Louis makes him feel invincible, and they might not be, but they’re gonna be alright. Maybe they’ll be told to conceal it, but love can’t be hidden.

“We’re gonna be alright,” he whispers to Louis, and he nods.

“They’ll never take us down,” Louis tells him with a winning smile, and Harry feels so warm, so comforted at it.

No matter what happens, Louis and him are on the same page, and they won’t take anything lying down.


	2. to stand in the light and be seen as we are

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> so this chapter is heavily about the struggles of fame and the struggles they went through because of the harsh images they were forced into. please read with care!

The whole world loves Louis, Harry knows this. Thinks they’d love him even if he wasn’t gifted with a silver tongue. Thinks it’s impossible to meet Louis, watch Louis, listen to Louis, and not fall halfway in love with him. He has this aura about him, that Harry knows doesn’t come from the magic gift he was born with. 

16 year old Harry had felt it from the moment they met. The light in Louis, the happiness, just spreading out to anyone, everyone, it touched. Even those who hadn’t met Louis personally, who’d only heard his voice, who’d only seen him on tv or in the crowd of a thousand tears, knew and could feel how special he was.

Some times, all the time, Harry was left staggered at how lucky he was. To be in love with this beautiful person, and to be loved in return by him. How lucky he was to see Louis as he was when he was at his strongest, his brightest, his weakest, his mutest. He was an enigma, and he was a man, and he was the one Harry got to call the love of his life.

And Harry knows that when Louis asks, Harry and most others jumps at his command. People love him, simple as that. People want the best for him, and they do what they can to help him. And when they don’t, Louis’ power of persuasion, that little seed that gets planted inside people’s brains to make them do as Louis said without it being obvious, come in handy.

But a power like that can only do so much, Harry has always known that. It’s a seed that’s planted. It is not mind control. Louis can not, and if he could - would not, change who a person fundamentally is. He can alter their perceptions a bit, but changing a whole entire person’s belief system? That he can’t, however amazing him and his power are.

Louis could tell a man to bring an umbrella in a heatwave, he could tell a cashier to overlook the missing 10 pence when he was buying something. He could tell people a lot of things and they did it. But as many things as he could control, there was as many he couldn’t. He couldn’t make the hospital raise his mum’s pay, he couldn’t tell a teacher to say he was sorry and he didn’t mean that little Louis would never amount to anything - he’d do great and achieve his dreams.

And he couldn’t tell and teach a greedy manager that he should care more about love, about freedom, about the power of representation, than the abstract idea of what he thought would make more money.

You can tell a man to wear orange instead of black, but you can’t change a man’s rotten core.

If he only cares about money, if he only cares about the right perception, you can’t do anything. You can beg and scream, and Harry knows Louis would do that in a heartbeat if he thought it’d make a difference, but a homophobic and greedy manager’s mind won’t be changed. He’d sense there was something wrong.

They’ve closeted artists since the dawn of time. Two more in a boyband is nothing, is what he tells them.

Harry knows, like he knows the sun rises in east and that home will always be Louis, that Louis has tried every single trick in his book. He’s tried every single combination, and he’s still not given entrance to the vault in which their freedom is locked in.

Harry knows Louis has done what he could, and yet, he isn’t prepared for the way his mind and hope crumbles, the way his heart feels like stone, so heavy he feels like he may be dragged through the chair, through the floor, so heavy he’s just gonna fall fall fall.

They had this shot, and there’s nothing they can do. They didn’t blow it, because from the second they stepped inside this room, they were powerless.

Money, greed, homophobia, closed minds triumphs over goodness, always has, hopefully not ‘always will’. 

“What’s your strategy then?”, Louis asks, and Harry can hear the velvet in his voice, the power that makes his voice seem as alluring as a siren’s call, “you can at least tell us that.”

The man in the suit, who probably has a name, has a job description that all seem irrelevant in the face of him denying them their freedom, sighs and nods. “Well, it’s standard procedure really. We don’t want your, ahem, sexuality to interfere with promo, and the best option there is to eliminate the option by having you seen with some lovely ladies from time to time.”

If he thought, he was panicking before, if he thought it couldn’t get worse - he had no idea. The feeling of betrayal, helplessness, disgust, heartbreak, he’s sure it’s gonna break him. He has Louis, he knows he has Louis, and with Louis even the darkest of times will hold a little light, and he’ll get through it. He knows he will. But right now, right now he’s ready to give everything up. Not Louis, but this whole boyband thing. Just give up everything that has to do with fame, money, power, being controlled, being treated as something to market instead of a human being.

He’s about to say so, about to verbally quit right then and there, not even knowing if Louis would be ready to give up their dream of dancing in the stars together, on top of the world. He thinks he would, thinks Louis would give up everything too - if only Harry asked, just as Harry would for Louis.

He thinks, knows, they’re on the same page. But fame is alluring, even if it comes at the expense of your own freedom.

He’s about to throw everything away, when Louis speaks. And his velvet voice is even stronger than before, makes Harry sit up straighter, makes Harry want to do anything.

“Do you think that’s the best course of action?”, Louis inquires, voice sultry sweet, fake and dripping with laced poison.

The man nods, looks to his assistant, nods once more. “It’s standard procedure, one of you will be the ‘ladies’ man’, and the other will be practically married from day one, steady relationships never get questioned.”

Harry looks over at Louis for the first time, feels his breath get taken away at the sight. Louis’ blue eyes are stormy, his jaw snapped shut tightly making his features that much pronounced, and maybe Harry would be completely focused on that if the situation wasn’t this tense. Focused on how hot his boyfriend looks while angry, fighting for their freedom. But looking down at Louis’ tightly curled hands, and how they’re shaking a bit, and how underneath the stormy blue - Louis looks scared. He looks like the kid he was when they met, like the kid who once sat across his geography teacher only to be told he’d never amount to anything.

And Harry knows, gets reaffirmed in what he’s always known, that Louis will fight tooth and nail for them. He’s not gonna give up, not like Harry contemplated, he’s gonna fight until the very end to get them the best deal.

“But isn’t standard boring? Predictable?”, he asks, voice even sweeter, alluring, “what happens when people see through the old and used formula? What happens if these people get attention from the media, get the general public to question the whole thing?”

“Virtually unheard of,” he answers them with a laugh, “if a media outlet wants to cover it, we’ll pay them of, simple as that. Now, Louis, I was thinking-”

And Harry can see the panic in Louis’ eyes, can see that he’s close to breaking. He doesn’t want this, but his resolve is breaking, he doesn’t seem to know what to say to make the suits leave them alone.

Harry speaks up, his voice hoarse but steady. “You want us to be commercialised, right?”

And there’s no magic, no silver tongue to make him say what he really feels, but the suit still smiles amicably, “of course. The surveys say you’re gonna be the next big thing, you five. Cute, great singers, charming, and very very available to the teenage girls.”

And there it is, he thinks. There it is, he hopes with his entire being.

“Wouldn’t it make us less available to the girls, if we were constantly in relationships? If one of us even were in a relationship from the start?”

That’s the first thing that’s made the suits pause for a bit, eyes small, scrutinizing them.

“Maybe,” he concedes before turning to his co-worker, their voices low, hurried whispers as they try to figure out the best strategy. At last he turns back to them, his face grim. “Gentlemen, I know what you’re trying to do. You will do as told.”

Louis cuts in, forcefully, no more sweet-talking, and Harry thinks he’s never been terrified of Louis’ gift before. But this, this isn’t silver tongue. This is more.

This is worse.

“You will not have Harry and I parade some random girls around,” he says, and the suits blink, transfixed, “what you want is five boys in a band, happy and charming, you said it yourself. If you do what you intend to do, you will get three boys, mad on behalf of their friends, and two actors. We will not be authentic, and you will not succeed with inauthenticity. You want money, you want fame, you won’t get that from three lads alone. You will not give us beards, or we’ll leave the band.”

The air is practically buzzing, and Harry can’t keep still. This is new, this should be frightening because Louis basically has the two suits in his hand. They’re staring at him with unfocused eyes, and that’s not how Louis described his power.

It was only suggestions, he said.

But suggestions wouldn’t have placed the downright terrified gleam in his eyes when Louis told him the truth. Suggestions wouldn’t make Louis believe his _power_ had made Harry fall in love with him.

But a power that made people dance to his words and tune? That would explain his fear.

An ugly feeling of betrayal curls in Harry’s stomach even if he understands why. Harry can make it thunder if he wants to, can brew up storms, can cause physical damage. But he can’t control a person’s will and bend it to his own.

“Of course not, mr. Tomlinson,” the man grins after a bit, then nods to Harry, “mr. Styles. We meant no offense.”

And Harry can’t breathe properly, doesn’t know what to do. They seem to be free, but at what cost? And then he remembers the fear in Louis’ blue eyes, the fear of being left behind, of being shunned, of receiving Harry’s disgust, and thinks to himself - would Louis be able to live with the cost?

“We wouldn’t want you to be our little puppets, doing whatever we wanted,” and Harry thinks that this man has never lied so blatantly before, thinks that Louis’ power might be the most terrifying thing in the world if a worse person had been gifted it. To change a man’s core like this and have him believe it. “Authenticity is what the fans fell for, they’d abandon us and you if you gave them anything less.”

Louis breathes out a deep sigh of relief, and Harry takes Louis’ hand. Tries to convey that yes, he was hurt at Louis not telling him, but he understands, and god he loves him so much. He saved them.

A loud cough from the man makes Harry jump in his seat. “Of course, you can’t do that. That PDA stuff. What would the parents think?”

And Harry nods slowly, a little smile spreading across his face, because yes, he knows there’s small people in this world, small people with small minds, but hand holding isn’t the only way to show love.

The perceptive ones would notice, he thinks.

“Of course not, sir,” Harry says, letting slowly go of Louis’ hand. “Thank you, sir.”

The man blinks a bit, looking suspiciously at them, then shakes his head. “I’ll bring the contract by you tomorrow. We will not put you in fake relationships for the sake of authenticity, but you will not mention your relationship, you will not show your relationship through PDA. No hand holding, no kisses, no nothing, no disclosing your relationship to anyone, you understand?”

And Harry thinks that on stage, they can’t touch them. These suits with their greed and their rules. On stage in front of the world, Harry and Louis will be free.

They will be soaring across the night sky, dancing among the stars. 

The suits can try and contain them, but as they lock eyes, the two of them, Harry knows deep within - they’re never gonna contain them. Even if they were given beards, miserable and lost, they’d have each other, they’d have the stage, they’d have song writing.

If they’d been shoved deep into the closet, he knows they’d have found a way, however subtle and yet, to speak loud and clear to the people willing and open to listen.

They accept, they’ve got their freedom, of a sort, and that - that’ll be enough. It’ll have to be.

“It’s gonna be hard,” Louis says, not looking at Harry, a cigarette limbly held between two fingers. Harry nods absent minded. “It’s already hard, you know? I wanna hold you all the time, keep you safe.”

Harry smiles a bit at that, before remembering the display of power Louis had put on in there.

“If you wanna keep me safe, Louis,” he says, “why don’t you just use your power to command every single person to leave me alone?”

And it’s mean, and he knows it is the thing. He knows he’s using Louis’ own insecurities against him, and it’s shit, it’s awful of him, but, he feels frayed at every edge of him. He feels so tired, so used, vulnerable. 

Normally that would mean he’d cling to Louis, be enveloped in his warmth, and think that the entire world could burn and he wouldn’t give a shit. This time around, there feels no outlet to the darkness inside him, to the sheer disappointment, the harsh reality check.

And Louis is just sitting beside him, he probably feels betrayed. He probably feels in over his head, like Harry is a minefield and he doesn’t know where the explosives are hidden. What’ll make him go off and cut even deeper than he already has.

It’s the worst thing he’s ever said he thinks. Not even the times he’d been forced to smile at the older boys’ homophobic jokes compare to this.

This isn’t him pretending to support ugly beliefs to avoid being outed, to avoid being bullied, to avoid being exactly what they hated.

This is Harry doing what they did. Using something against a person, they didn’t choose to possess. It may be a power, something unnatural, something people shouldn’t be able to. It’s not entirely human.

But it’s still a part of Louis. It’s a part of the Louis Harry loves. Is sure he’ll always love. The Louis Harry will spend his life with, he knows this, even as young as they are. It may not be as normal a part as sexuality or religion or being vegan, but it’s still a part of him, like him being gay is. Just like controlling the sky and weather is for Harry.

The suits tried to push them into a closet, tried to make them hide themselves with fake girlfriends and fake one night stands, tried to shame them for what they are by telling them that they’ll never succeed if the world knows the truth.

And that’s what Harry is doing to Louis.

Not in so many words. Not with the same motives. They did it out of greed, a want for money, out of homophobia. He did it out fear.

Phobia. So maybe it isn’t all that different after all.

“I’m sorry,” he says in the pressed silence, where Harry’s thinking and his mind’s on the loose, and Louis is just staring into the thin air - his hand in Harry’s limp. And he is sorry. Because it wasn’t fair, it was ugly and cruel.

It was born out of fear, as most cruel things are.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, clutching Louis’ hand harder, trying to convey that he got scared, he got blindsided, but he loves Louis, he wants to overcome that fear. “I didn’t expect it, I didn’t know you could do that, and I got scared. It was terrifying, you having and using that much power.”

Louis doesn’t say anything, but Harry can see him biting his lip out in the periphery of his eye. Can see him turning away, leaping a hundred steps ahead of what Harry’s trying to explain. Taking his words, turning them into something they’re not. Not to cause an argument, but because Louis does that when he’s pressed and insecure. So Harry holds his hand tighter, doesn’t let go for a second.

“And I shouldn’t have said it. I shouldn’t have tried to shake that fear by saying something like that,” he swallows around the lump in his throat, “it was just really shocking, Louis. For a second it felt like you were another person, your voice. It sounded so powerful, and it made me want to run, Louis.”

He waits a second, lets it hang in the air, and Louis is beginning to relax, he can feel it. Wants Louis to relax and shout at him for being stupid.

“I never want to run from you, Louis,” he concludes. “You’re my home, the place and person where every roads leads. I’m sorry for what I said, we’re together in this.”

Louis nods, breathes deep. “You’re allowed to be scared, Harry. I get it, it’s horrible what I can do. Cruel.” His voice gets a bit shaky, and Harry holds his hand tighter, “it’s not right to do that to another person, but I couldn’t let them do it. I couldn’t, Harry.”

And he’s turning, finally, and looking straight at Harry, his blue eyes a bit red, filled with tears, his mouth locked in a straight line like he was keeping something in.

“I couldn’t let them make us do it,” and he’s crying, and Harry can’t stand not having Louis in his arms for another second, “I felt ill, I couldn’t breathe, so I had to do something. I had to save us.”

Harry’s scooping Louis into his arms, letting the boy cry shakingly, heartbreakingly, into his shoulder. Crying is exactly what Louis needs, it’s healthy, letting out all the pent up emotions. All the fear, shock and pushing his powers to the extremes.

Harry’s never made the sky do anything it didn’t want to do, he trust it to set limits for him. Probably foolish, but he’s found the sky can be trusted much more often than humans.

Humans always want something.

“You looked so terrified, Harry,” Louis whispers between sobs, “so terrified of what they’d make you do.”

And Harry can’t really get any words out, just loves this boy so much.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers to Louis’ hair, “I’m sorry. I love you, I love you so much, and I don’t wanna be afraid of you, not now, not ever. I love you.”

Louis doesn’t say it back in words, is still choked up, still lost in his thoughts, and Harry hates when Louis does that. Would rather have the boy confide in him always, but not this time. This time Harry pushed him, too far, too harshly, away from him, and he’ll welcome Louis back whenever he’s ready for it.

That’s love, he thinks, working through troubles, giving each other space, but always coming back to each other. Travel the world, but always come home.

They’re not allowed to say they’re in love. Perhaps they never will be, the contracts they’ve signed are long, complicated, and stretches across years and years.

But there will be no stunts, there will be no fake relationships, there will be no pretty girl at either Harry or Louis’ side, and that’s what matters.

It’s hard though is the thing. It’s hard not to touch whenever. It’s hard not to hold Louis close whenever he feels like it, winding his hand around Louis’ waist, casually, just to feel Louis against him. It’s hard to look at Louis’ smile, hear his laughter, listen him crack a joke - arms gesturing and face lit up like the sun, without telling him the first thing that’s on Harry’s mind. How much he loves him. It’s always on Harry’s mind, that statement, crystal clear and unashamed, and when he dreams at night it’s of days to come when he’ll be allowed to share it with the world.

They won the battle against management, and for a little while, for a little while it feels like they’re on top of the world. Like nothing can bring them down, they’re gonna walk amongst the stars and there’s nothing slowing them down. 

Sure, there’s rules for what they can’t do, but on stage, it’s like it doesn’t matter, like they don’t exist. 

On stage, there’s only them, their boys, the music, and the fans who scream their lyrics back at them and make the music come alive. On stage, Harry can turn a little to the side, can sing words of love, of admiration, wonder to Louis. On stage, they can banter, they can touch a bit, and it almost feels like they’re free, like they’re out and proud. 

After each show, Louis kisses Harry like there’s no tomorrow. Tells him everything he’d wanted to say to him during the show, how brilliant his voice was, how he could sit for ages and watch Harry work the crowd, how _good_ his bum looks in those jeans are you kidding me, and most importantly: how proud he is of Harry. How proud he is of how far he’s come, and how proud he is of the person he knows he’ll become. 

Harry then flips them around, runs his hand through Louis’ hair, thumb dragging gently over his red lips, before kissing him soundly. Voicing all his secret thoughts that so many times were about to slip his lips. How the sky outside was blue and it was all for him, how Louis made him smile and laugh that night, how happy he is to have Louis by his side, how he wants to tell them all, and most importantly: that he loves Louis, and he never wants to stop. 

Louis always tells him: then don’t, and Harry will always whisper, only if you don’t either. Louis laughs, a bit self-deprecatingly and Harry hates it a bit, and whispers back, couldn’t if I tried, love. 

When they’re still high on adrenaline from the crowd, from how loud the girls screamed, how _loud_ they sang _their_ songs, it doesn’t hit them how much it hurts to keep their thoughts between them. How they can never say them out loud to their fans. 

It’s only afterwards, when someone asks them a question, when they see a couple on the street, when they remember that they have to hidehidehide. It’s not a big ache they carry around at all times. Most of the time they’re by themselves, they’re _them_ , and then something will happen, and they’ll remember. That’s what hurts the most. When they remember. It’s like a dagger through the heart whenever Harry goes to touch Louis but can’t, every time he’s recalling something they did together and almost slips up, every time they’re asked about what girls they fancy and what celebrity crushes they have. 

Louis’ silvertongue got them out of beards, and every time Harry lies awake at night, thinking about how unfair it is that he can’t hold Louis’ hand in public – he remembers. He remembers that while this isn’t fair, not at all – they're _kids_ in love, that’s it, they’re not hurting anyone – then it could have been so much worse. 

He could’ve been forced to listen to his boyfriend, thank you very much, talk about a fake girlfriend. A fake girlfriend who’d be allowed to hold his boyfriend’s hand in public, kiss him if required, look and smile fondly at him, _call_ Louis her boyfriend. 

He wonders, in the darkness, enveloped by Louis’ arms – warm and safe, if that would’ve broken them. If they’d given in, given up, crumpled under the pressure. He doesn’t think it’s unimaginable, they’re kids. Can kids go up against the entire music industry? 

Turning around in Louis’ arms, in the little shell of love and protection he can always count on, and looking at his boyfriend’s peaceful face. In his sleep, Louis can relax. There’s no fights with management to win, no act to play in front of the whole world, no judging from anyone. In their house, in their bed, in his sleep, he’s free to be just him, to relax and let go of the worries and burdens he carries every day. 

Louis is so strong. Harry’s known it from the beginning, and he’s always been in awe.  
Revelling in this feeling of pure _love_ , he thinks, no. No, they wouldn’t have broken. They’d have stumbled, wouldn’t have been able to find their way, would’ve gotten confused, and they’d get frustrated, but they wouldn’t have broken. 

They’d have fought. 

They’d have won. 

He buries his face in Louis’ shoulder, circles his arms around his body, holding his boy close, close, close. He’s not intending to ever let go. 

“I love you,” he whispers, over and over again, it’s not anything he’ll ever be able to say enough.  
“I love you, thank you for protecting us, I love you.” 

They won over the suits, they did. 

But not everyone’s gotten the memo. The papers still write, hunting and thirsting for a scoop. To be able to bring the first photos over one of the boys and their significant other. 

The industry is tough, is poisonous, and greedy, and the media isn’t any better. The media shapes images of celebrities, and right now, they’re trying new tactics every day. 

Female interviewers flirt with them, and none of them answer in kind, shift in their chairs, smile politely, cracks a few jokes to diffuse the tension. Louis is often the one controlling the conversation, he has an endless repertoire of jokes and quips, ready to go at any time. He knows what to say to get his boys to smile, and Harry loves him so much for it. 

Even when a woman three times his age keeps asking him details about his love life, makes allusions to his sex life, and looks at him like he’s much, much older than his 18. That’s perhaps the only occasions where even Louis can’t get himself to make a joke. 

When Harry’s asked about if he likes older women, if he likes anyone, if he’d heard that this and this female celebrity had said they liked him?, Louis looks ready to kill, and Harry wants to kiss him for it. 

There’s tough days, exhausting days, where the sky won’t stop crying. When Harry can’t stop feeling like it’s all too much, like the only place he wants and can manage to be is his bed with Louis holding him close. Where the screaming fans trigger headache after headache, where Simon and management smiling at them like they’re nothing more than the keys to success and money, and when he’s being told to sit so far, far away from Louis. 

Those days he wants the sky to create storms. He wants the rain to hammer down, wants the winds to howl, wants the world to echo the screams and tears he’s holding in. 

Those days he wants Louis to hold him and never let go. 

Louis has bad days too, but those days he just grows quiet. And Harry knows why, but he hates it. He hates Louis bottling everything up inside him, thinks each day he’s gotten Louis to bottle more and more up to him. Because Louis always demands to hear what’s hurting Harry, even when he can’t put into words, but he never voluntarily tells Harry what’s bothering _him_. He gets so mad at Louis for shutting him out at those times, and then so unbearably sad because he wants to help so much, but he can’t when he doesn’t know, because Louis is so complex. What bothers him is very unlikely something obvious, and they’re all so tired these days. 

They’re being spread thin, all of them, and Harry feels so helpless. He can’t help his own boyfriend, he can’t get management to take it just a bit slower with them, he can’t say everything he wants to say. 

But there’s good days too. Where the sky is blue blue blue, and the sun is shining, not a cloud in sight, where Louis is open and happy and laughing, and Harry can’t get out of bad fast enough, wants to go to the gym, wants to cook Louis breakfast, wants to experience life. 

They’re so lucky, is the thing, they’re living the dream. They’re travelling the world, they’re playing their own songs, they get to hear their own songs sung back at them. 

He thinks of the little boy back in Holmes Chapel who once dreamed of reaching the stars, maybe just graze them, touch them once and then fall once more. He thinks of how he wishes he could tell that little boy that it was all gonna be okay. 

He thanks that little boy every day for being so strong, prays he isn’t letting him down. Wants him to know he’s doing his best. 

They’re all so young, and they’ve already accomplished so much. Their album have taken off, the world is at their feet, thousands of girls and boys across the globe love them and their music. Defend them always against music snobs, and they’re always there for them. 

He defends them in kind, all of the boys do, doesn’t let any interviewer insult them or try to make them look anything else but the best and most passionate fans in the world. 

They’re all so young, got so much to do, got so much to see. Harry’s 18, he doesn’t know a lot about the world, politics, international affairs, climate change, and he hopes to one day be aware of everything. He doesn’t quite know how to best negotiate with management, wants one day to be able to say no to them without being shoved a contract in his face. 

There’s much he doesn’t know, and a lot that he does. One thing is love. He knows what love is, has felt it so strongly, keeps feeling it grow stronger every day. It’s not always easy, but it’s never painful. It’s not always convenient, but it’s never something he’d regret. 

Love is love, sometimes you feel it more, sometimes you feel it less, but it’s always there as long as you want it. It’s not easy work, it’s full time, and Harry loves it. He loves taking care of Louis every day, and he loves Louis taking care of him. He loves them talking in the quiet nights, he loves them getting to know each other in new and uncharted situations. He even loves them fighting, he doesn’t love the tears, the look of heartbreak on Louis’ eyes if Harry goes too far, doesn’t love the way his heart hurts when Louis just goes quiet and distant like not even fighting is something he wants to share with Harry: he loves them _talking_. They’re both so stubborn, both individuals with their own methods of coping, of fighting, of working through things, but they always talk it out. They always apologise. They always make up. 

Love is, in Harry’s opinion, a choice you make again and again. To keep loving your partner, to keep cherishing your partner, to keep figuring things out with your partner. You go through life, seeing interesting people who might have interesting stories and experiences to share, and you choose your partner. Harry thinks he’d choose Louis in every single lifetime, in every single universe, and he intends to choose Louis for the rest of his life in this lifetime in this universe. 

“Harry, how’s it going? You’ve been 18 for a while now”, the blonde guy says, and Harry thinks he’s a producer, very popular, famous, influential, and out to get a scoop, “you’ve found any interesting birds?” 

He’s the first of the boys ready after make-up and clothes fitting, and he doesn’t have Louis to hide behind, he doesn’t have Niall to crack a joke, doesn’t have Liam to say that’s none of your business mate, he doesn’t have Zayn to scowl at the guy before taking Harry by the shoulder and leading him out. He doesn’t have a way out, and he feels like running away. 

He doesn’t though. Because all the others can stand up for themselves, they’re strong, they know what they want to answer and what they don’t, and where they’re asked a question behind the scenes they don’t care – they know how to get out of it. 

Harry doesn’t. Not yet. 

So he smiles shakily at the man, a fake smile, and he’s sure the man would be able to tell if he was actually interested in _Harry_ and not just in getting some gossip and maybe brag a bit himself. 

He’s the typical LA type, they always want to brag. 

“Because let me tell you,” and his smile is smarmy, like he’s been taught how to make rich, young stars sell their secrets for nothing, “the birds here? Absolutely unreal.” 

Harry just shakes his head, too busy not saying anything to actually say anything, so the man plows on. Either ignorant to how uncomfortable Harry is, or just doesn’t care. 

It’s probably the last one. 

“See,” and the man’s pulling out a cigarette, making Harry step back. There’s for one, a sign saying you can’t smoke, and two – he doesn’t want to smell like smoke before being ushered into the interview room, sitting in the smell for hours upon hours. “The thing with these birds here? You can have one standard, always know she’s there for ya, you get me? But she won’t care if you go out and pull other birds on the sly, ‘s long ‘s she’s the one getting her name in the papers, yeah?” 

“I’m not really looking for one night stands,” he tries to object weakly, making the man laugh at him, greed in his eyes. 

“Oh, don’t be stupid, mate,” and he’s still cackling, it’s an ugly sound in Harry’s ears, “one night stands the only way to get through this business, especially when you’re young! Everything changes, don’t get shackled down with one bird, mate, she’ll weigh you down in no time.” 

And Harry just stares. Stares at this greedy, little man, huffing and puffing on his cigarette, breath wheezing a bit when he inhales, who’s laughing about women like they’re stock cattle. 

It’s frightening, really, to be faced with the shallowness of the world. To little by little peel of the glamour of the entertainment industry, see the people being papped having fun on night outs, one girl after the other under their arms, as nothing but creatures greedy for money and attention. Having sold themselves out for so long and for so little, that all they have left are the booze and money, trying to fill themselves with empty substance, instead of admitting how  
lonely their lives are. 

“Unless you get a girl knocked up? I say, don’t see her more than once,” the man clasps Harry’s shoulder, exhaling the smoke into his face, making him cough and wince away, trying to slip out of the man’s grip, “love, kid, doesn’t exist in LA, or anywhere else in this world. Don’t waste your time tryna find it.” 

And Harry may just be a young boy, may just have found success and is still so naively innocent in the music producers’ eyes that it’s almost too much, but he knows how bullshit and sad a comment like that is. 

“Thanks for the advice,” he gives one last tight lipped smile, and the man lets his hand slide off of Harry’s shoulder. 

As he steps away from the man, heading back to make up, trying to find just one ounce of a fragrance that would be able to hide the smell of smoke, and he can’t stop thinking about how lucky he is. 

How lucky he is to wake up every day, knowing that he’s in love and is loved in return. Knowing that Louis is his, and he is Louis’. Knowing from that first day at the toilet that it’s them for life, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. 

How lucky he is that when life gets too tough, when everything seems to big of a mountain to climb, and all he wants to do is lie in his bed – there's someone there for him. Someone to lean, someone to help him over the hills, urge him to keep going. Hold him when all he needs is a pillow to cry on, and arms to keep him warm and safe. 

He’s so lucky to know love, and he’s young yes, might be told he doesn’t know what love is, be told that love doesn’t exist in this industry – there's always some kind of hidden ulterior motive, be it money or press, but he does know what it feels like to loved, to love in return. 

He knows how it is to go through tough times, feel alone even with your partner, and knows how to deal with misunderstandings. He knows what it is to watch someone and just get struck by the though of how much you love them, of how fascinating they are, of how _beautiful_ they – inside and out, and get struck by how lucky you are to be able to keep them. Because he will, he intends to keep Louis for the rest of his life. 

He doesn’t want to end up, having given up on all ideas of love, thinking that life has no bigger meaning than where the next pay cheque is coming from. That the only reason people could want you, is for sex, money or fame. That all people want from you, is their name next to yours, your shared picture on the front page of a tabloid. 

It’s a sad way to live, and he pities the ones who’s fallen that far. 

If he listens closely, he thinks he can hear the rain outside. 

During the interviews, he does his best to catch Louis’ eyes, try to communicate to him how in love with him he is, how much he values him, how lucky he feels to have him. He misses out on a few questions, doesn’t know where his answers lead, but because his answers are coming even slower than usual, one of the boys pick up the slack for him. They send him a few looks, that mean anything from ‘tone it down’ to ‘you’re so whipped man, and it’s embarrassing’, and Louis’ looks who vary from ‘what are you doing’ to ‘i love you too, you mega sap’. 

All in all, it’s not the worst promo day they’ve ever had. 

Mostly because he’s been to unfocused to focus on all the flirting from the female interviewers, the sly comments from all interviewers, and just generally how similar all the questions are. Music, tour, ladies, ladies, ladies, ladies. 

“Are you good, Haz?”, Louis asks on the way home, they’re being dropped off last, and Zayn and Liam are in their own little bubble. As always. 

Harry thinks that they’re all so lucky to have someone they care about who’ll keep them grounded. Thinks they’ll keep Niall grounded if he ever needs them to. 

“Yeah,” he nods, then thinks about an article he read about how there needs to openness between partners if they want their relationship to work, and he reconsiders, “actually, there’s something on my mind.” 

Louis smiles softly at him. “Anything you care to share?” 

Louis is always so gentle with him, always leaves it up to Harry when he senses it’s not an issue that needs quick resolving. Lets Harry think and consider his answer, go through his thought process. 

He loves Louis so much. 

“There was a man today,” he starts, not really knowing where he’s going, just needs to tell Louis everything, his hand playing with Louis’ fingers, “and he asked me all these questions about me having a bird, and that I shouldn’t settle down. That everyone always wants something, you know? There’s no love in this industry.” 

He chances a look at Louis who looks confused, distraught, and really kind of heartbroken. 

“Is that so?”, and there it is again. Louis building up his walls, Harry can see them rising behind those blue, blue, blue eyes. The rain continues to patter outside the car. 

“Yeah, that is so,” Harry repeats, hand squeezing Louis’ just a tad tighter. Louis just looks subdued more than anything, like he’s steeling himself for what he thinks is coming. 

Harry doesn’t understand that, probably never will, those bursts of doubt that Louis has. Like he’s sometimes ready to give Harry up the minute he says so, like he’s been steeling himself for this moment for a long time. 

Harry doesn’t understand because there’s no fixture in his life more solid than his love for Louis, and their future. He thinks the latter is what Louis sometimes doubts, and when he lets his thoughts go, they run wild. 

“Like, life here, as he understood it,” he continues, “is all about money and fame. When all the illusions and glamour fall away, that’s all that’s left. A group of people, so alone they’d sell their name for a front page, holding some other star’s hand.” 

Louis doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t let go of Harry’s hand either. 

“And I guess,” and this where he fumbles, this where he always fumbles. Getting to the deeper point. “I guess what I’m trying to say is, thank you. Thank you for being there for me, for loving me, for letting me love, take care of you. Thank you for showing me the most important things in life.” 

He doesn’t look at Louis now, just looks to their entwined hands, fitting so perfectly together, and he smiles. He’s so lucky to have and to hold this boy. 

“And I know that we’re,” he takes a breath, feels Louis’ stroke on the back of his hand, relaxes a bit,” that we’re really young, like ridiculously young. But I’m so sure about you, and I love you. I love you so much, you don’t even know, and I’m not going anywhere. You and the boys give this whole thing meaning, and I’m-” 

He doesn’t get to say what he is because Louis shuts him up with kissing him, hands framing his face in between breaths, and Harry feels himself calm down immediately, his smile widen. He loves his boy. 

They part after some time, only moving very little, foreheads resting against each other, breathing deeply against each other. 

Louis inhales, hesitates and then nods to himself, his thumbs on Harry’s cheeks caressing him. 

“I love you, Harry. I never thought I’d feel love like this, you make me feel safe. You make me feel at home.” 

He kisses Louis again, because he can, because he loves him, because they’re together in this. They’re young, got their entire lives ahead of them, the world at their feet, theirs for the taken, and they’re together. Against it all, they stand together. 

Harry has never felt stronger than he does with Louis by his side, never felt more grounded than he has with Louis’ hand in his. 

“Ready for the interview, boys?” 

The interviewer is a woman, a girl, not much older than themselves. She’s very pretty, objectively, and she has the sweetest and most welcome smile. Harry likes her immediately, she doesn’t seem to be infatuated with them, just happy to be there. She’s welcoming but not looking at them like they’re a zebra, and she’s the lion on the savannah. 

It’s weird honestly, he’s been interviewed by plenty of women, is friends with plenty of women, but there’s something in the way she doesn’t try to sneak a look at any of them that – without trying to sound conceited – has him floored. 

It hasn’t happened in a long time. Someone treating them as _them_ , five boys. He didn’t know how much he missed it. 

Being regarded as him, just him. 

“We’re absolutely buzzing for this,” Louis tells her, and she smiles at him, looking genuinely pleased with his answer, “what sort of questions have you got in store for us?” 

Her smile doesn’t change, not exactly, but there’s something flickering in her eyes. Gone too quickly for Harry to be sure, but it looked a bit like defiance. 

“Oh, just the usual, lads,” and a squirmy feeling settles in Harry’s stomach, the usual is what woman are you crushing on, Harry have you seen this woman likes you, lads what sort of girl do you like?, and he for a moment thought, this would be a different interview. “Music questions, tour questions, how you handle the pressure, and so on. Nothing you haven’t answered before, I’d bet, sorry for that.” 

And, and Harry feels a bit breathless. No _just a bit about your personal life_ , no _just gonna ask you what all the girls want to hear_ , no question that could even relate to dating, to women, to sexuality at all. 

Just music. Just them. Them in focus, what they’re here to promote in focus. 

He looks at the other boys, all of them a bit amazed, it’s happened before of course. No dating questions. But it’s never felt like this. They’ve never had the rundown of questions where their dating and personal life was so obviously exempted. 

“Yeah,” Liam says, and he sounds a bit breathless, and Harry can relate to that feeling, “sounds great, perfect to be honest.” 

The interviewer grins at him. “Good to hear, I’ll be back in a few, just gotta get the mic ready. Someone will come and fix you up in a mo.” 

And then she’s off, and the boys are left to sit and smile at each other like absolute goons. 

“We,” Louis’ eyes are crinkling, and it’s Harry’s favourite look on him. Ever. Well, maybe with the one exception of Louis in the morning, sleep rumpled, soft hair sticking out, eyes bleary, and his arms a solid weight around Harry. “we, we don’t have to lie?” 

His voice is so soft, quiet, like he doesn’t dare believe it, but wants to, with his entire heart. Wants to believe that he doesn’t have to say anything about what girls he likes, how fake the rumours of him and Harry are, what girl their love songs are about. 

“Just music,” Harry sighs, his smile a bit shaky, tears prickling a bit, “just music, just us, no girls, no lies. Just us.” 

The boys smile, and Harry thinks this is what they’ve needed. A breather. An opportunity to let go of all the lies, answer some questions about their music, without having to force some heterosexual explanation. 

The interviewer is back after about ten minutes, and in that time they’ve been able to get over the relief they all felt when she announced her planned questions. 

She seems a bit more tense this time around, but her smile is still genuine, and she she still seems excited to get started. Maybe just a pulled muscle, crick in the neck or something. Lord knows a crick in the neck can ruin your day, or sore muscles from overexerting them. 

“So,” she started, commanding everyone’s attention, the boys’ quiet chatter immediately falling completely quiet, “I’m here with One Direction, the five British and Irish boys that’s taken the world by storm. Welcome boys!” 

They all greeted her back, Harry leaning back in his seat. 

“I’ve always wanted to ask you,” she beamed, “when you record a song, how do you figure out who takes what parts? Is it all you, is it the label?” 

Some of the questions make them hesitate a bit, not because they’re too prodding or trying to make a certain point come across that’ll shape their image either way, it’s just industry questions, that they don’t know how much they can say about. And there’s the nerd questions, the questions they haven’t been asked before, and those make them hesitate because it’s hard to formulate an answer right then and there, when they’ve never really talked about it to someone else but their family. 

No one else usually wants to know about the production side of things, what goes into preparation before tour kicks off, how they manage to rest their voices and not overextert themselves. 

It’s nice, it’s really nice to get to share that part of their lives with someone, with their fans. Let them in on what goes on behind the scenes when an up and coming world class boyband is in the music studio. 

She’s funny, makes them laugh, and she doesn’t just let them off easy, unless she can see in their restlessness that this isn’t a question that’ll ever be answered to her satisfaction. And then she just moves on. No awkwardness, no transitioning coughs or any disappointment she didn’t get the gossip she’d prodded after. 

It’s weird, being respected like this. By an interviewer, they’re normally not. Either they’re being looked as if they’re a meal to eat, or they’re looked down on. Except for when they get fan questions, they’re mostly respectful and insightful; this is the first time an entire interview has felt so easy. 

About halfway through, she begins fidgeting. Just small twitches, honestly, in the beginning. A shoulder moving up a little, a distracted shake of her head, and it’s not something Harry should pay attention to, normally wouldn’t. 

It’s just, it makes her mouth corners drag down a little each time, and her eye flickers to somewhere behind them each time. 

“Next question,” she states, and she’s sitting with her cards in hand, other hand in a fist with her finger pointing upwards, “if you could choose any show of all the ones you’ve done, what would you favourite be?” 

As Zayn opens his mouth to answers, she grits her teeth, before, maybe trying to be subtle maybe trying to prove a point, ripping out her earpiece as she moves her hair away from her eyes and behind her ear, hand and earpiece going down together. 

Zayn blinks a bit at what happened, but doesn’t comment further, only moving on with what he was gonna say before. 

“I think one of my favourite shows gotta be the one in Mexcio City.” 

The other boys nod, before Louis speaks up, smile cheeky. “Favourite show? Wellington, hands down.” 

Harry smiles fondly, looking down, pretty sure his cheeks are rosy. “Yeah, mine’s ehm, mine’s probably Wellington too.” 

He thinks maybe they’ll hear for that when they get back. 

He also thinks they can stick it where the sun doesn’t shine. 

Wellington felt like freedom. 

The interviewer’s smiling at them, eyes soft, and he thinks maybe she’s caught onto something, but she doesn’t look like she’d ever tell. She just, looks happy for them. 

It feels liberating. It feels hopeful. 

She’s in the industry, she’s not lost all hope and faith in everything but alcohol and money. 

They must almost be done by the time they’re interrupted. 

“Sophia,” a production assistant whispers in her ear, “boss wants a word.” 

The interviewer, Sophia, doesn’t look surprised rather than acceptant, and there’s the same spark in her eyes. 

Defiance. 

She puts her cards down on the table, smiles at them before apologising, “I’ll be back in a jiffy, while I’m gone you guys can buzz on what your hopes for the next album is.” 

She hurries off, exchanging rapid whispers with the girl who came to get her. 

“What’d you reckon that was about?”, Niall inquires, and they all look helplessly at each other. 

“No idea,” Harry admits, shaking his head, “though she was doing a stellar job.” 

Louis hums agreeingly, hand sneaking to Harry’s knee, squeezing it once before just staying there, as an anchor, as a comfort, and Harry melts at the touch. 

With the other hand, he’s typing something on the phone, and Harry smiles at the sight, Louis using his elbow to keep the phone steady while trying to hit the right letter with his finger. In the end, he manages though, and Harry presses a fist against his mouth to keep in the giggle. 

_whatcha doing tonight??_

He looks over at Louis, eyes big and blue, picture of innocence, and he can’t believe he’s in love with a loser. 

As if their date night hasn’t been planned for ages. 

He rolls his eyes, but picks up the phone, typing his answer before sliding it to Louis. 

_2night? Sept 28? Spending it with some loser😕’_

Louis cackles a bit, teeth biting into his lip, shaking his head. “You’re a loser.” 

It’s a weak counterattack and Harry’s about to call him out on it, because honestly? That was too good to just let go, when they hear it. 

“I told you, specifically,” a male voice is thundering, “to ask them those questions.” 

“And I said no,” Sophia answers calmly, it’s her voice no doubt. 

Harry sits up a bit, looking over at Louis whose eyebrows have furrowed, looking confused, concerned, and Harry’s pretty sure he looks the exact same. 

“Do you think anyone’s gonna want to read an article about what solo Harry Styles likes the most?”, and the voice is taunting, condescending, and makes everything in Harry angry. 

He sounds exactly like one of the suits when Louis and he tried to plead their case, when they tried to make them realise – you can’t keep love contained. 

It’s the voice of greediness. 

“I would think their fans would want to-” 

“Oh please, their fans are 12 year old girls who doesn’t even understand they’re singing about sex, but like their hair!” 

“I told you,” Sophia maintains, her voice quivering with what sounds like anger, “that I refused to ask them about what women they like, about their sex life, about anything that personal. The oldest is 20 for god’s sake, that’s not something that should be out in the public. Let them be fucking kids.” 

There’s a bit of shuffling, some angered whispers, and a very firm ‘if you force me, I’ll quit, we’re a music magazine for fucks sake, not a Tuesday tabloid’, and then Sophia is coming back. 

Her eyes look a bit red-rimmed, but she’s holding her head high. 

“Sorry about that, lads,” and her smile is not as bright as before, but she’s settling back into character, and Harry’s heart breaks a bit, “have you thought of a brilliant answer to give me?” 

Harry hasn’t, but Liam has. And Zayn has. And Niall look at her, like he’s in awe, and so does Harry. 

Louis looks so confused, his eyes wide. 

This interviewer, this girl – she can’t be much older than Louis, who doesn’t even know them, who _decided_ upon it even before she’d met them, put her job on the line. She put everything on the line because she didn’t want to, refused, to ask them the same questions that other interviewers seemingly had no problem with. 

She refused to violate their privacy, refused to force them to give out of the few secrets they’ve been allowed to preserve. Not because they’d done anything to deserve it, not as a transaction as favours often were in their line of work. Simply as an act of human decency; she just wanted to let them have the privacy everyone is earned, she wanted to respect them because they’re young – and they are – and she’s probably gonna get fired because of it. 

When they leave, the last bit of the interview going by sluggishly, like he’s underwater, listening to the others answer question after question that, even after she got yelled at by her boss in the presence of everyone, still doesn’t even go near their personal or love life. 

He’s in absolute awe. 

Sneaking a look at Louis, he’s thinking of ways he could be like that. 

Unbowed, unbent, unbroken. Maybe both scared of the consequences of her actions and of the authorities that determine her future, but a firm believer in her ideals, in what she wants.  
He wants to be like that. 

To take Louis’ hand, hold it firmly in his and ignore the screaming suits, telling him it’ll damage album sales, damage their image, that they’ll fire him. 

Unbowed, unbent, unbroken. 

He tries to, subtly, thank her for what she did. For standing up for them, for defending their privacy, for not agreeing to sell out their secrets. 

For respecting them. 

She doesn’t accept it with anything but a smile, a nod, and a firm ‘that’s what everyone with integrity would do’. And he thinks that she’s a bit wrong on that, or that the entertainment industry has warped the definition of integrity, and she’s the only one still using the definition people in the real world use. 

In this industry, however honourable, won’t get her far. 

For some reason, though she’d be a brilliant interviewer, he doesn’t hope she gets far, not in this branch of the industry, working for greedy, undignified people. 

She’d become disillusioned with the whole thing, like he has. He doesn’t know if she has anyone to help her carry the burden, but he hopes she does. Everyone needs, deserves, someone to help them with their troubles. 

They leave a little later than they ideally should have, the interview dragging for a bit longer, but for the first time, one of the first times anyway, he doesn’t mind. 

He tells Louis so in the car, and he nods his agreement. 

“She was too cool,” Niall exclaims, and yeah, she was. Cooler than all of them. 

Braver too. 

“Wish I had her guts,” Zayn commented quietly, not in a self-deprecating way, but in a thoughtful way, as if he too had gotten jump started some thoughts, like Harry had. 

Louis nodded, then hit his shoulder against Harry’s. “Harold here was halfway in love with her.” 

He smiles, head shaking, curls jumping a bit, before leaning over and landing a sweet kiss on Louis’ lips. 

“Jealous wanker,” he whispered against his lips, and Louis just hums a bit. Not agreeing or disagreeing, Harry’s not even sure he heard it. 

“Haven’t kissed you in too long,” Louis tells him, lips quirked upwards, before pressing their lips together, the kiss going on for a bit longer this time. “Love you.” 

Harry feels like he hasn’t stopped smiling in ages. “Love you too.” 

Liam groans a bit. “You two are sickening.” 

Harry looks over at them, eyebrow raised as he pointedly stares at how they’re sitting. Liam’s arm around Zayn’s shoulder and stroking through his (admittedly very, very soft) hair, Zayn’s legs in Liam’s lap, and Liam just stares right back at him, daring him to say anything. 

“Oh, shut it, Liam,” Niall grins, “you two are just as bad. If any was to complain, it’s me, but I don’t, so shut.” 

Liam doesn’t offer anymore intelligible comments, but he’s definitely grumbling under his breath, or at least he is, until Zayn smiles at him, caresses his cheek, and kissing him. 

That does seem to shut him up. 

“Wasn’t half in love,” Harry whispers against Louis’ cheek, lips puckered a bit, planting one-two-three-four small pecks on the skin, “’m already all the way in love with you.” 

Harry can feel Louis’ smile against his collarbone, and it makes Harry feel so warm, so floaty, that he can’t even describe it. He thinks it could best be described as love. 

“I know, darling,” Louis whispers in his ear, “I was impressed by her as well.” 

“It’s just,” and Harry usually fumbles with his words, or at least takes his time, but this time he’s stumbling a bit, “it’s just, it’s a first? Seeing somebody do that, try to protect us.” 

Louis’ hand comes up to Harry’s hair, stroking through it soothingly, lightly playing with the small ringlets of curly hair. 

“It was admirable, and very brave,” and that’s that. Harry presses some more kisses to Louis’ cheek, just because he can, because he wants to. “Now, I was promised wooing, I was promised candles and flowers, and the best meal I've ever tasted, and Styles, I gotta be frank.” 

He moves from Harry’s collar bone to just behind his ear, pressing a soft kiss to the skin there, his breath tickling and making Harry tighten his hold around Louis’ waist a bit. 

“I expect you to deliver.” 

Harry almost whines, but he doesn’t because 1) he’s very manly, and 2) they’re in a car with their three best friends. They’re not exhibionists, for god’s sake. 

He takes a look over at Niall out of the corner of his eye, only to see him shaking his head, looking absolutely mortified. 

“God, why am I friends with such utter losers?”, and he sounds genuinely horrified at his past self’s decisions. “You’re all so goddamn pathetically _whipped_?” 

Harry presses another kiss to Louis’ cheek, and then moving downwards, peppering the way with kisses until he finally gets Louis pried away a bit, so he can finally recapture those soft lips.  
“I love you,” he whispers. 

“Love you too,” Louis promises him, and Harry smiles. 

There’s a beat, and then Niall’s sighing again. 

Liam and Zayn must’ve been grossly sappy too. 

“Don’t you ever tire of yourselves?”, and Harry can just imagine how Niall’s shaking his head, arms folded, eyes looking up at the sky, very aware that he – in fact – the only Cool and Sane person in this car. 

“I know I get tired of you lot.” 

Niall gets dropped off first, and seems like he can’t get out of the car fast enough. 

The date isn’t as extravagant as he might have led Louis to believe, but it’s heartfelt, and he’s spent ages on getting it just right, and that’s what matters. The big shebang has never really been Louis’ style either way.

The food isn’t something he’s cooked by himself because they’ve been at interviews all day, and he didn’t want them to sit at home for two hours, hungry and tired, and he knows Louis appreciates it, however much he’s grumbling about Harry slacking off, becoming comfortable, not loving him the same, and whatever bullshit he can think of.

He gives up telling Louis how many times he’s eaten take away when Louis had said that _now_ was the time Louis was gonna take a stand, and cook for Harry as well. Because they each do their own thing, Louis makes Harry feel safe, at home, takes care of Harry in so many ways, and Harry takes care of Louis, takes care of their home, and makes Louis feel safe. 

“Will there ever be a day when you don’t complain?”, Harry wonders out loud while going around lighting his many candles. Both scented and non-scented, and it’s a luck none of them are allergic to anything, and it’s lucky Louis is so whipped for Harry that he allows him as many candles with as many clashing scents as he wants.

Louis rolls his eyes from where he’s lying on the sofa.

“Wouldn’t you like that?”

“I would actually, would make our romantic date even more romantic.”

Louis puts down his phone, gets up and shuffles slowly over to Harry who at first ignores him, because he’s petty, but then arms are surrounding him, and a body is pressed along his back, and the love of his life is pressing small kisses to his shoulder, whispering how much he loves him, and well, a third of the candles being lit is just as good as all of them, he thinks.

“You hungry, babe?”, he whispers, putting his hands on top of Louis’, curling in on himself a bit, smile widening on its own. Louis just makes him feel so happy and safe.

“Famished,” Louis gently whispers back, “but I’m also absolutely knackered. Food in the sofa?”

Harry lets Louis’ hands go, turns around in the embrace, Louis’ nether arms resting on each of Harry’s shoulders lightly. Louis looks tired, his blue eyes a bit dull, but he also looks so soft, as he always does, and Harry can’t help but give him a little kiss, just for being so adorable.

Not that he’d ever tell that to Louis. He’d absolutely kick Harry’s arse for saying stupid things like that.

He’s got a tough reputation as a proper lad from Donny to uphold.

He is adorable in moments like this, though, where he’s so soft and open that it makes Harry want to coo at him. Also something Louis would never let him live down, maybe even ignore him for a few minutes.

Out of the two of them, Harry is definitely better at the silent treatment. Oh, Louis can pull it off well enough when they’re around other people, he might even go make some guy become absolutely smitten with him - Louis has that effect on people - to make Harry get his shit together quicker, apologise and kiss Louis well and thoroughly so no one gets any ideas. It’s all harmless, but Harry’s well aware how lucky he is to have Louis. He doesn’t intend to let anyone think they even have the shadow of a chance.

But when they’re home alone like this, Louis can go maybe an hour at tops before he demands Harry’s attention. That’s probably gonna change when Louis fulfills his dream of getting a little puppy. Harry’s pretty sure he’s going to have, for the first time, a true contender for Louis’ attention and love. Not that he’s gonna mind, if he’s being honest, because Harry is gonna be completely whipped for the dog too, and he’s probably gonna fill his entire camera roll up with pictures and videos of Louis playing with their future dog, looking sweet and cute with the dog.

A dog would also be the first step in Harry’s dream of that house with white picket fence, children and a dog. They’ll be able to get the house in a heartbeat, the dog is in discussion and when he says discussion he means that they’re compromising which means Louis is deciding and he hasn’t made his mind up entirely, and the children. The children will come soon enough. When they’re older. When they’re more mature.

When they’re freer.

“Yeah,” Harry nods, kissing Louis again, quickly, “food and tea in sofa.”

Louis smiles at him, kisses him. A sweet one, not hurried, rushed, or leading to anything. It’s Harry’s favourite kind. Those kisses that Louis give him just because he feels like it, those he gives him because he wants to show Harry he loves him. Small bursts of love for no reason other than that. Love.

“I’ll get it all ready for you,” he promises, cups Louis’ face to caress his cheeks with his thumbs before giving him a gentle kiss on the forehead.

Louis nods at him, looking about five minutes from passing out which means he’s gonna have to be quick about getting it all ready for them.

They end up watching Gogglebox, one of their favourite things. half-lying, half-sitting, in their own end of the sofa, blankets wrapped around them, feet entangled, and with small breaks sending smiles to each other, it’s absolutely perfect.

This is exactly what they need, when everything is crazy around them, when everything is moving too fast, everyone talking too fast, they need these moments, these evenings. Moments where it’s just them, they’re not trying too hard to force an atmosphere, they’re just being themselves.

Maybe reminding themselves what that means, to just be Harry and Louis, without the limelight, the screaming of girls, the pressure of how they should and must present themselves, and the ever present worry of giving themselves away and getting punished by corporate.

“I love you.”

It’s a soft admission, words spoken with no force, they just are. Floating around them, and Harry feels like the temperature in the room rises a bit, the eternal flame inside him that is his love for Louis burn that much brighter.

He blows a little kiss back.

“I love you too.”

There’s a beat, Gogglebox chatter in the background, an elderly couple getting mad at each other because one said a cuss word, and it feels for a second like they’re just two normal guys in love with normal lives. Who’s watching some late night television, and then will go to bed, and tomorrow they’ll go to their classes at their uni, and they’ll have a class or two that they probably hadn’t revised for, and they’ll meet with their study groups, maybe have some beers at the uni bar, and then they’ll maybe go out, but they’ll always come back home to each other.

It’s not an exciting life, not compared to this, what they’re doing, what they have been doing just this year. Touring the world, 54 shows, all of them sold out. But it sounds like a good life, like a life that Harry would have wanted for himself, would have enjoyed, had it not been for this.

“We’re lucky, you know,” Louis tells him quietly, and Harry looks over at him, snapping out of his thoughts.

“What?”

“We’re lucky,” Louis repeats, “luckier than most. We’re living the dream.”

Are they? Are they really?

“Are we?”, Harry asks, voice a bit hollow, and there’s a small patter of rain on the window.

If they’re living the dream, why is it only these moments with Louis where he feels truly whole?

Louis sits further up, blanket falling a bit down, and he leans over to grip Harry’s hands tight in his. His blue eyes boring into Harry’s, gaze earnest, soothing.

“We _are_ , Harry,” he whispers, “we’re performing our own songs to so many people, we’ve been all around the world. We’re walking amongst the stars, Harry. Just like we always wanted.”

He had never thought walking among the stars would have been this cold, how much he would miss the familiar, warm reality he had known up until now. Where he’d been home with his family, been able to hug his mum when he needed it, surrounded by childhood memories. How much he’d miss those first days they were together as a band, lying on the soft ground, feeling like he’d be comfortable to lay here for all eternity, with Louis’ blue eyes on his. Only them, those five boys, them and their dreams and hopes, and none of the facts of the cold, harsh reality.

“Is this the dream, Louis?” he wonders, looking down at their joined hands, joined in a way that would make the suits sue them, fire them, destroy them. “We’re singing, we’re having fun, but we’re never ourselves. Is it the dream when I have to be told how hot I look, how lucky any girl I meet will be, when all I want to say, scream, is how much I love you? Is it the dream when we can’t be who we are, Louis?”

His throat feels like it’s closing in as he gets to the end, his voice feels thin, and it all feels fragile like everything in their world right now. One wrong move, and they’ll be hurt by the suits, one wrong move that could prove they were in love - like they _are_ and it’s beautiful and right, and it shouldn’t be this scolded - and everything could tumbling down. Not just his and Louis’ careers, but all the boys.

He looks slowly up at Louis again, tentative, feeling like he’s walking on eggshells, and the tears he’d already felt coming when he looked up, starts falling as he locks eyes with Louis’ red-rimmed ones. The blue in Louis’ eyes always shine so hauntingly beautiful when he’s crying, it’s the worst thing Harry has ever seen. 

Louis’ looking absolutely heartbroken, worn out, stressed out, and his hands around Harry’s are shaking a bit, but he also looks so determined that it gives Harry a bit of hope.

“Listen to me, Harry,” he whispers, voice caught, “please listen.”

He can’t really do much else but nod, so that’s what he does. He feels like he may fall apart if he opens his mouth again.

It feels awful, and it makes him so angry, and it makes him so sad, that talking about what is supposed to be his biggest dream is driving him to tears.

This isn’t how it should be. The people they portray on the stage, the boys they are when they shove away all the worries and expectations and rules, that’s who they should always be. Louis is only 20, Harry only 18, the other boys inbetween. They should be themselves, not some catered versions that’ll please the parents and the media.

“I am so proud of you, darling,” Louis tells him, grip on Harry’s hands tight, like he’s begging him to believe him, “and I can’t tell you how sorry I am that this industry isn’t what any of us had hoped. I love you so much, and there isn’t a day I don’t wish I could tell the world just how much. You’re the man I want to spend every single day with, Harry, and I have been so lucky, knowing you, loving you, being loved by you.”

“But,” he gets the one word out, the lump in his throat forcing him to take a break. Deep breaths, in and out, in and out, in and out, “but it’s 2012. It’s 2012, and we can’t be ourselves because of what? I left Holmes Chapel to get away from these people, Louis, and I just ran straight into their arms. Is that luck?”

Louis gently wipes away some of the tears streaming down Harry’s cheeks. In the quiet, Harry can hear the steady patter of rain outside, it sounds comforting, and he knows it’s the sky trying to lend him some comfort in the only way it knows how.

It feels familiar in a way only Louis and the boys have, this last year.

He’s been so caught up in everything, in the joy of performing, in the heartbreak of denying his relationship with Louis, in the hurt of hearing Louis deny it too, in the wonder of travelling the world and everywhere they turn there’s fans who adore them so overwhelmingly much. They’ve been so busy, and he hasn’t had the time to actually dwell on any of those emotions, enjoy the moments of joy, work through the moments of heartbreak.

It’s been like a rollercoaster, over too quick to actually dwell on your fear, your joy, and now he’s coming back down, and the adrenaline rush is leaving his system, and all he’s left with are frayed nerves, and he constantly feels like he wants to cry or puke or maybe both.

“No, Harry, no, that’s not luck,” Louis grants him, “but that’s not all you found, is it? I know it’s hard to look past it, but you found me, Harry, and you found the other boys, and we all love you and support you, no matter what, and you have so many fans, fans that are there just for you, if we’re honest, and you’re so loved.”

“Would I be loved by them all, if they knew?”

Louis looks so sad, and it’s breaking Harry’s heart. Why can’t he be as good dealing with this as Louis is? Why must he always have so many thoughts in his head, why can’t he just accept Louis’ words and move on?

“Probably not, Harry, but you’ll be loved by most of them. They love you, not for the sex symbol, that management have forced you into, but for the amazing, funny, wonderful person that you are. They love you for being Harry, and so do I, so do the boys.”

He stretches out his arms, and Harry comes willingly, lets himself be held, holds Louis tight in return. It feels like being home, here in Louis’ arms, and he never wants to leave.

“We’ll figure everything out, Harry. It won’t be like this forever.”

With Louis’ breathing, low and steady, in his ears, the comforting sound of the rain, and with promise and hope in his heart, he falls asleep, feeling more like himself than he has in forever.

There’s another Christmas, there’s another New Year’s Eve, and while the snow falls slowly, just for them, and the sky is colourful, beautiful, filled with fireworks, and the air is filled with cries of joy from spectators, the children’s laughs and shrieks rising above all else and filing Harry with hope and joy.

Children are so pure, they don’t judge based on your sexuality, they judge you on your character, the vibe you give off. Children don’t have any prejudices, they’re new to the world, and all good, all bad, will be taught to them by their parents, by their family, their friends, their teachers, their acquaintances, their idols.

He’d always dreamed of becoming an idol for a little child that could tell them, show them, that it’s alright to be yourself. You can succeed, walk amongst the stars, be cherished and loved, for being exactly who you are.

Instead he’s being forced to hide away.

“Do you think the new year will change things, Louis?”

Louis squeezes his hand.

“I hope so. It’ll have to.”

Harry turns his head slightly to look at his boyfriend. “Why?”

“If it doesn’t, I’ll make them.”

“Management?”

“Management.”

The snow is falling, he’s with the love of his life, and the new year is upon them. It’ll be a better one. It’ll be a freer one.

“I want to say ‘I love you’ to you in public, Louis,” he confesses, “that’s gonna be my New Year’s resolution.”

Louis laughs lightly, turns towards him. “Well, you can start right now.”

Harry smiles. “I love you.”

It’ll be a better year.

There is always something special, something spectacular, about waking up next to Louis. Waking up to someone as gentle as him, someone as astounding. Ever since that first time, Harry's found himself a bit breathless. Just for a moment. Just in the first few seconds as he slowly opens his eyes, especially on the days where there is no alarm clock that disturbs them, when it's all him waking up, out of habit maybe, and looks over at the man holding him in his eyes.

A few months ago, he'd have said boy. That they were both boys. And they still are, they're still very much kids, very much new to the whole thing of travelling the world, but they've experienced enough, in Harry's own eyes, to warrant them being called men. One does not hide their love from the public for over a year, one does not shake his head when asked if he's seeing someone despite being in love, despite being loved, despite having someone to hold and go through life with. One does not do that and emerge a child.

Sometimes he wishes he was still a child. Still with that innocent wonder at the world that was unfolding in front of them, the world they hadn't seen yet, that they were about to step into together, hand in hand. But when you're forced to let go of that hand, when you're forced to smile, to say that this actress and that singer is very much your type, despite there only ever being one person for you, you do not remain a child.

Still he wishes they were. Still he wishes that when he looked upon the stars, that he still felt that innocent hope, wish, that they were gonna explore them together, that they would be just as warm and gentle as they looked from down below.

Stars don't blink slowly when you're among them, they're flashes, quick and fast, and behind them there's papparazzis shouting your name, shouting all sorts of questions and rumours, expect you to answer them, all while still smiling back at them while they, with no mercy and no humanity, invade your privacy, hope to uncover all your dirty secrets. Behind the explosive flashes, there's managers reminding you that you can't look at your love, that you can't hold his hand, that you can't give him a chaste kiss on the cheek, that you can't snuff out the hope in your teenage fans' eyes of one day being in a relationship with the you they've presented to them, that one day they too can possess him like the managers do. There's suits, screaming at you that you need to smile more, that you need to be more sweet and kind, and that you need to sing louder, and you need to straighten your posture, and you need to be perfect always, even when you're not feeling like anything in the world is perfect, could ever be perfect.

But all that fades away still, when you're waking up next to Louis Tomlinson.

There's something so calming, such a feeling of home, and hope, and safety, in watching Louis just sleep, hair mussled and tussled, face slack and soft, all the worry lines from all the discussions with and the probings at their management, all his worries are packed away, and in these moments, when he's asleep, when they're home alone in safety and comfort, he and Harry can just let everything go.

In sleep, Louis looks like he has no worries in the world. In his sleep, when he holds Harry so tightly, so warmly, there's not any way to imagine that when they roll up the blinds, and begin the day, let the sun in and put on a smile, they'll not be allowed to be like this.

In these moments, it's harder than ever to understand why anyone would want to hide their love away.

In these moments, there's no amount of sold albums, no amount of fans, no amount of money in the whole entire wide world, that could make Harry want to not hold Louis' hand in front of them all, the suits, the fans, the papparazzis, the world.

And then the day begin, and they each put on their masks.

"You're looking awfully contemplative over there," Louis says gently, voice still coarse from sleep, and Harry blinks a few times, centers on Louis, and he's looking as dashing as ever. Beautiful, handsome. Hair out of place, soft and brown, and his eyes are tired, but they're still startlingly, beautifully blue.

"I love you," Harry says back, loves saying it, loves saying it out loud and with pride and with the love the declaration holds, and without worrying about the suits hearing it.

Because if he's completely honest, he's already told a fan once before that he was in a relationship with Louis, he's told an interviewer Louis was his first crush, his first real crush and it was discussed and it was mutual, and he doesn't really care if they get more confirmations. He'd happily shout it to all of them, all the time, so they really understood. What he's worried about is the suits hearing it, them backtracking on the original deal, of no beards, of no fake relationships and rumours given by them to tabloids, and fear of them taking the dream away from all the other boys.

Harry himself might have Louis, might not need more, but the others still see the stars and see opportunities, sees a glorious future, and he can't take that awya from them. He himself would like to be able to see a future somewhere, written in the stars he walks amongst, a future that's bright and promising, with love on open display, where he can be the sunshine story for young children all over the world who thinks there's something wrong with them, who's afraid of their own mind, of what they think when they look at a person of their own gender and the difference to what they feel when they look at the gender they're supposed to be attracted to.

Hope, he thinks, is nice to have, and it's mornings like this where he so sincerely wishes he had it.

"I love you too," Louis whispers, leaning forward a bit, pressing a kiss to Harry's curls, voice coming out muffled, "so very, very much."

"How do you want the sky today?", he asks because he asks this every morning.

"As soft as you," Louis always answers, and it's both an endearment, a reassurance, and a reminder that he _is_ soft, that he isn't a hard shell. That the industry hasn't broken his spirit. He is a little lost, but he hasn't lost all his hope.

He loves Louis so much, he wishes he could describe the feeling better.

It's not that it's a hardship touring the world, standing in front of increasingly bigger and bigger crowds. It's not that hearing them sing along to the songs they've worked so hard on, that started out as songs they had not attachment to, that they've now turned into their own, found and made up little stories to each verse, to each line, each word.

It's brilliant is what it is. It's just brilliant.

It's exhilerating, and it makes him feel like they're at the top of the world, that nothing can reach them, that nothing can bring them down.

He looks out at the sea of people, just there to see them, a sea of thousand hearts and tears, and he almost chokes up, not because he's nervous, that hasn't happened in so long, but because it's so overwhelming, it's so beautiful in its own way, and the way the lights come up when they sing a special song, thousands of lights like their own little stars, just for them. The fans can't see the lights, they can't see themselves, but they, from the stage can.

It looks like how he imagined the night sky to look when he lay under the tree, in the meadow, back in Holmes Chapel. When he imagined himself walking through the stars, famous and rich and successful, this was how it looked.

A sea of stars, not there with any intents behind it, there's no shouting behind them wanting to know their every little dirty secret, but each their own little story, heartwarming, heartwrenching, but a light given in love, devotion, for them.

This is how it should always be, he thinks, as he looks out at them all, breathless smile on his face, like he can't believe it, and he can't really.

Believe that there's so many people, night after night, who gather to see them, who put up their phones, shine a light just for them, out of love. Alone it's not significant, but put together it rivals the stars in the open sky above them.

They tell them, night after night, how beautiful they look, how beautiful they sing, but they can't, none of them, put quite into words how much it means to them. To have a few hours every night, or so it seems, to be just them. To sing their hearts out on stage, to goof around and laugh without filtering, without trying to brush over the blemishes so no one can poke fun at them in the media next day.

They're One Direction, their success weren't manifactured by some suits sitting high and above the every day man. Their success were freely given and created by the very same fans who each represent one light, and that's how they always will be.

The day, he vows as he blows them a kiss, trying to distract himself from his wet eyes, they don't care about seeing just one light in the crowd, that's the day they should retire.

One light isn't significant in the crowd, but without that light, without all the individuals who each put up their phone, one after the other, there wouldn't be a starry night sky to look out at. No, they can't pinpoint each light easily, but they each are special, and without them, the crowd they look upon wouldn't be the same.

They sing, not because the suits require them to do it, but because that's their passion, this was _their_ dream before it was anyone else's way to gain money from them, and it was the fans' dream to see them to get to this point, and all that's happening here, is for them, the fans, and it's for them, him and the boys, to remember why they endure the cold, cold world they normally live in, driven by hunger and greed for more and more and more and even more.

They endure stone cold facts about how to make more cash for the suits, because they get to stand here on the stage, worldwide, in the warm light of their fans, who want to share this moment with them, who sing along with their songs because they resound in their hearts, who dance because they want to and have no worries, and here they too can let go.

So when they thank the fans each night, multiple times, tell them that they wouldn't be here without them, there's so much meaning behind every word, and they can't say any of them, but he hopes that they understand.

They understand a lot, their fans, they see a lot of what goes on behind the scenes, behind the curtains, and what goes on right in front of them. They see what is behind their smiles, they see when Harry can't help staring at Louis, when their banter gets a little too familial, in a way that friends' banter doesn't really ever, and he feels so proud and free watching them all discuss it, believe it even though they haven't been allowed to confirm it in years.

"We love each and every single one of you," they say, and they mean it, from deep within their hearts and souls. "We love everyone here tonight, everyone waving their lights, everyone not. Everyone who's here to have fun, everyone who couldn't be here. Wherever you are, if you believe in us, we believe in you. We love you."

"Harry."

He doesn't listen.

"Harry."

If he just ignores it all, maybe it'll go away.

"Harry," and the voice is different, not harsh, not distant. Gentle, light, caring.

He opens his eyes, locking them with the blue ones he knew he'd meet. Louis looks every inch as exhausted as Harry feels, it feels like they haven't stopped for days. They haven't stopped touring, they haven't stopped recording, they haven't stopped being awake.

"Hey Lou," he whispers, and his voice is not where it's supposed to be, for singing, for recording everything flawlessly. He’s tired, he’s worn out, and he needs to get his shit together in about five minutes.

They need to finish this album, at least the vocals, in a few weeks, and they’re not even close to finishing, and they’ve got shows, and they’ve got hoarse voices, but it doesn’t matter. They need to finish it.

“Yeah,” he whispers thickly, “I’m awake.”

Louis presses a kiss against his temple, lingers there, and Harry feels his body warming, like a gentle wave brushing up against his body. Warm, loving, comforting.

He’s so happy Louis is here.

He opens his eyes, and even though his brain is starting to wake up, opening his eyes is such a feat he can barely manage. They seem like glued to his underlids, and his eyes have trouble focusing at all, the world blurry, Louis’ face close to him just a mass of colour that makes up the face of the love of his life.

“I’m tired,” he says, closing his eyes for a second, before trying to open them once more. Blinking again and again and again quickly in a row makes his sight become a bit clearer, and he nods to himself.

Ready to get on with the day.

“You alright?”, Louis asks him, gently, eyes caring and a bit worried, and Harry nods.

 _Are you alright?_ is something they’ve begun asking each other in the morning, when they’re eating around their little table with the blue and white cloth, whenever there’s time for it, or just when they meet each other, tired and drained.

He nods to Louis and hoists himself up and out of the bunker.

They all say yes. Even when Niall is limbing, he says yes. Even when Zayn’s face is gaunt and way too pale, he says yes. When Liam smells a bit of strong alcohol, even after a few showers, he says yes. Even when Louis has bite marks on his lips, from keeping in his power, he says yes.

Even when it’s thunder and rain outside despite the weather forecast foretold sun, Harry says yes.

They’ve been lying to the interviewers for so long, about their lives, about who they are, about small insignificant details, all to cater to their audience, all to please the suits who can whip out punishment after punishment if they don’t get in line. The suits who have installed fear in all of them, a little nagging doubt in the back of their heads always that never leaves them alone, a little voice reminding them not to fuck up or they’ll lose it all, everything they’ve built up so quickly can so quickly be torn down.

They’ve been lying to everyone else, what’s one more lie amongst them?

One of them should break this terrible cycle, one of them should remind the others that they need to stand together, they need to share everything that’s bothering them, they need to talk it out.

With all the pressure wearing them down, they’re gonna break if they don’t onload.

He knows this, knows they all know this, but still, it’s like he can’t quite make himself do it. He’s so tired. He doesn’t have the energy to break the bubble of mutually agreed upon silence and ignoring of their problems.

Louis takes his hand as they walk to the studio, and he feels strong once more. He feels like he can take on the world, the suits, everything.

He’s just one person, though, he can’t defeat years and years of ever-growing greed, the greed that penetrates and sullies the entire music industry. He wishes he could. For Louis, for his boys, he’d be willing.

As soon as he wasn’t this tired.

He realises, after a few weeks of touring, that they can’t go on like this. They’re tired, they’re withdrawn, they’re practically bleeding dry. Their vocals are off, they don’t remember their lyrics, and even if the crowds never let them down, sing the words they’re supposed to remember for them, it’s all wrong. They paid to see _them_ sing, they didn’t pay to see five young men bumble around on stage, stressed and worn out, and not be able to sing the songs the crowd came to see correctly.

It’s not right.

It’s not healthy.

And he’s done with this whole Don’t Ask Don’t Tell agreement they agreed silently upon in order to not bleed dry with all their problems out in the open.

“We need to do something,” he says, around the breakfast table the other boys look up, confused, maybe a bit hesitant, and he elaborates, “we need to do something about how we’re living.”

There’s an eerie sense of quiet, and he knows this will be the calm before the storm. But he won’t let them go like this for much longer.

They’re killing themselves, and he wishes he was exaggerating. 

“This isn’t healthy.”

He looks up from his eggs to lock eyes with Louis, his eyes so sad, his lips pulled back like he’s trying not to cry, but he also looks proud, and he nods, and the other boys follow suit.

“I’m tired,” Zayn says, “and I don’t feel joy in performing, every night I feel so weak because of nervousness, and my chest feels tight every time we’re out there.”

And it’s like the floodgates are opened, and they each spill what’s been weighing them down, what’s been making them all look so tired and drained, and so so sad, and his heart is breaking for each one of them and he feels a bit like crying both because he is finally getting to hear whatever’s been hurting his brothers so much, and also because they’re so young, they shouldn’t be this weighted down already, they shouldn’t be feeling this way. They’d never been feeling this way if they didn’t become famous.

It’s not fair. It’s not fair that the exchange for them achieving their dreams are gonna be this. Hurt, emotional draining, panic attacks, sleep deprivation.

Regret about even auditioning in the first place.

“I feel not good enough,” Harry tells them, “I feel like I’m lying to the world and myself, I feel like a coward for not doing what I want, wearing what I want, saying what I want. I feel slimy all the time, every time I lie about me and Louis, every time I have to take off my nail polish when we go out, every time I look at a piece of clothing and hear the suits tell me that I’ll lose all my following if I put it on because it’s not okay, it’s not hot, and that’s all they care about. I don’t have a personality, I just have my looks, and I hate it so much.”

Whoever gave them the idea that not saying anything, that keeping quiet, that shouldering your own burdens is enough; you can’t shoulder everyone else’s too, is someone he’s gonna kick in the ass, like everyone else on their entire team. Listening to others’ problems and them listening to yours, isn’t you taking their problems upon you, it’s also them taking part of yours upon them. It’s listening, it’s support, however silent, and it’s unburdening your heart.

He thinks that if they’d gone on for a bit longer, they wouldn’t have been able to come back. Because the worries, the burdens, the problems they’ve each been harbouring, trying to keep to themselves so as to not burden and worry the others, would have broken them down.

One person can’t shoulder the entire world on their shoulders. They’re not titans named Atlas, they’re humans. They’re so young.

Louis speaks up last, but he doesn’t unload, his eyes guarded.

“We need a therapist,” he says instead, and his voice is so resolute and decided, it unconsciously makes Harry straighten up in his chair.

“Do you think we’ll get better?”, he asks Louis late a night as they lay otherwise silently in their cot.

Louis squeezes his arms around harry, tight, like an anchor, weighing him down, making sure he doesn’t fly away.

“Yes,” he whispers, “we’ll get better, we’ll be treated better.”

Harry blinks in the dark for a few moments before turning around, quite a hassle with how little space they have, really only meant for one person, but nights like this, when the thoughts and the ache in his heart gets a bit too much, when the dark feels like it’s weighing down on him, he’ll gladly sacrifice sprawling out for being held tight by Louis.

Louis’ eyes gleam a little in the dark, and he looks beautiful, as ever, and Harry’s fingers slowly trace his features, resting gently by his jaw , thumb brushing his lips, at the end.

“Are you alright?”, he whispers.

Louis smiles a bit, Harry can feel it, and he’s sure it’s beautiful, like Louis is, even as sad as he knows it is.

There’s some morbid beauty in sadness.

“Not right now,” he confesses, “not even remotely, but I will be. I know I will. With yours, with the boys’ help, I’ll be just fine.”

Harry nods. “Will you tell me what’s wrong?”

Louis takes a shuddering breath, and for a second, a horrible second, Harry thinks he won’t. That he’d rather keep his secrets to himself, work through them himself, be weighed down by them, carry the burden of them himself. Forcing himself to be strong when he doesn’t need to be. None of them needs to stay strong alone, should stay strong alone. They’re a band, they’re brothers, Louis and him are partners in everything, in life. He’s just realising, slowly, how stupid it was of them to keep to themselves this time around. Let the suits control them too much.

“I feel helpless,” Louis says, “I’m the oldest, I should protect you. I should make them see reason, I should _make_ them. But I don’t because I’m so scared I’ll lose all sight of what’s alright, of where the last line is, if I will go far beyond it and only realise when it’s too late to turn back.”

He pauses, but Harry knows he isn’t done. And he’s content to listen for as long as it takes for Louis to relieve his heart.

“I want to protect you all so much, make them listen to me, I want to change things, but I’m not brave enough. I couldn’t make them listen when it was for us, Harry, not really, and I don’t wanna cross more lines, I don’t wanna wake up and realise that I’ve changed a human being down to their very foundations even if it was for the better in my own opinion.”

Harry presses closer, feels his eyes grow wet as Louis’ voice goes even more shaky, and he brushes away tear after tear from Louis’ cheek. He leans his head against Louis’, tries to give all his strength to his boyfriend, tries to convey, without interrupting, how proud he is of him, how much he loves him.

Louis’ voice is absolutely broken as he continues.

“I don’t want to be a monster, Harry.”

He presses small kisses against Louis’ forehead, tries to comfort him, tries with everything he has to convey his love for him. His admiration of him, of his strength, resilience, of everything he is.

“I love you,” Harry whispers, “I love you, I love you, you’re not losing yourself, you won’t ever. I’ll be here, the boys will be here, always.”

Louis nods, but he doesn’t say anything, and his breath is still shaking.

“I promise you,” he urges, “I promise you, Louis, I will never, ever, let you lose sight of yourself. I’ll be here, always.”

Louis nods again, but his breath is slowly getting back to normal, and Harry kisses him on the forehead again, his arms sneaking around Louis’ neck, holding him close. It’s usually Louis keeping Harry close, safe, home, but no one can be strong always, and tonight Louis needs this, and Harry will gladly give it to him.

 _I love you_.

He hadn’t thought he’d do it like this, if he’s honest, even though he had entertained the thought before. He’d always thought he’d consult Louis first, but thinking about it, this isn’t about Louis and him, this is _for_ Louis, this is Harry giving him reassurance, this is Harry saying ‘I love you, I’ll always be here for you, don’t fear’, and he thinks, whether Louis wants to join him or not, that’s all he needs.

To be able to say to Louis how much he loves him and wants to protect and support him without saying the words, when they’re in public, when the suits are glaring down their necks, when the whole world is staring, and he can’t say it, he can still show it.

“So just this?,” she asks him, “it’s a little untraditional, don’t you think?”

He smiles a bit, shrugs. “I’m an untraditional person, I’d say.”

She smiles and laughs a bit, nodding along, before getting to sketching.

Outside sun is shining on a blue, blue sky, and today is a good day, he decides. It’s a day of freedom, he feels lighter than he has in a long while, today he feels powerful and strong. Today he feels like he’s standing up to the suits, that he’s telling them to go fuck themselves, that he’s openly choosing Louis in a way he hasn’t been allowed to since the X-Factor, and it feels so _good_. There’s no other way to describe it if he’s honest, he’s feeling so good about this, like nothing’s gonna ever be able to taint this memory.

This is a winning moment.

“Where do you want?”, she asks him when she comes back with the finished drawing, and he looks at, feels so warm, feels so good, and he points to his wrist.

“Just here.”

She nods with a smile, a small one, like she’s in on a secret, and he feels content to just lean back and let her do her work.

He calls Louis as he’s leaving the parlor, and he picks up on the third ring.

“Where are you?”, he opens with, “I wanna take you somewhere.”

Louis’ laugh in response makes his heart flutter, fly high, in a way it hasn’t had the energy to do for some time. He feels like shackles are coming of, him getting lighter, lighter, lighter.

“So forward of you, Harold,” he teases, “what happened to the Victorian gentleman?”

“That was you, as far as I remember,” Harry laughs, “it actually should be you continuing our courtship, not me.”

It feels good, it feels so good to be laughing in the sun, his wrist hurting and humming pleasantly, and talking with Louis on the phone.

“Where do you want to meet?”, Louis asks in the end, cutting the teasing short.

He hums a bit, weighing the options, “was thinking of going for a drive actually, road trip and everything. Just the two of us.”

He can almost hear the smile in Louis’ voice as he answers with a soft, “I’d love that.”

Harry smiles, nods a little, “great, I’ll come pick you up.”

He hasn’t really planned anything, just wants to go for a drive in the sunshine, just wants to make the most of this day, wants to feel free and in love, and he wants to feel at home, and he always does that when he’s with Louis.

He can’t resist taking a moment, when he’s hung up, to just bathe in the sunlight, feeling warm like never before. This is how, he thinks, it should have felt to be in the spotlight. Not cold and like he was alone, but warm and like the possibilities in front of him were endless.

Things are changing, he’s gonna make them, he’s gonna force them. They’re treating them like dogs, like they don’t need anything but the smallest bits of treats and they’ll perform, write lyrics, sing and they’ll smile for the cameras and keep up the personas they were assigned at the beginning.

No more.

He’s not gonna stand for them trying to break them down, trying to control their every move to get more money, to get their outdated promo and publicity strategies to work.

Today is the beginning, but it’s not the end. He’s not sure it’ll ever end, this industry isn’t just tainted, it’s corrupted through and through, but he can begin the fight against it, for him, for him and Louis, for the boys. He’s not gonna force them, but he knows that if they stand together, the suits can’t keep rejecting them.

Nothing’s worse than a boyband gone rogue, especially not when you want to keep squeezing them for more and more money.

You keep your golden goose happy, he thinks, otherwise it won’t lay eggs. 

And it’s a terrible way to look at himself, all of them, but it’s how the suits are looking at them, he’s not even gonna kid themselves that there’s anything but dollar signs written all over them when the suits look at them.

Today he’s gonna spend with the love of his life, and tomorrow he’s gonna walk up to the suits’ offices, demanding change, demanding that they be treated like human beings and not cash cows.

He walks to his car, not quite skipping, but there’s a lightness to his steps that he hasn’t felt before. He feels clarified, he feels sure, he feels, well, he feels as free as he’s ever done.

London traffic is hell, but despite that, his mood doesn’t dampen. There, just in his peripheral, he can see the tape and bandage around his new tattoo, he’s playing his playlist, the sun is shining, and it’s never been better.

Traffic is slow, but that only means that there’ll be less and less time from he picks Louis till he can take off the bandage and show the new tattoo to him, and explain to him what it means, even he thinks Louis will know immediately.

“Took you long enough,” Louis laughs, as he climbs into the passenger seat, hair a bit rumpled from the wind that’s arisen. His eyes are glimmering and looking so light blue, that Harry can’t resist wanting the sky to change colour to match Louis’, even though it’s a party trick that’s getting old.

Louis doesn’t do anything but sigh contently as he watches the sky turn colour in honour of him alone.

“You’re a sap,” he tells Harry plainly, as a fact, before turning his head, smile spreading on his lips.

Harry nods and gives him a quick kiss. “Only for you.”

Louis looks so gorgeous like this, smiling, eyes shining, hair tousled, and if Harry could, he’d stay in this moment forever.

As it is, he only has his camera, and that’s enough, to at least preserve Louis’ look, if not the feeling Harry has right now. So settled within himself.

Without thinking, he picks up his camera, angles it to capture the profile of Louis, his sleeve sliding down a little, and when Louis looks over at the sound of the little click, he doesn’t even get to be annoyed by the camera before he looks down at the bandage on his wrist.

“Harry Edward Styles,” he says, and Harry looks up, a bit absentmindedly, from where he’s looking at the picture, studying it, contemplating if he should take a new one and hums at Louis, “did you get a tattoo?”

Harry blinks before looking down at his exposed wrist, and then looks up at Louis again, eyes shining, and his lips stretch out in a smile, and he nods.

“Yeah,” he says, voice hoarse, emotional, “yeah, got one for you.”

Louis looks at him, mouth open in a little ‘o’ for a few moments before he does what Harry least expects.

He whacks him with his book.

Harry blinks again, before spluttering out and indignated, “what the fuck, Louis?”

Louis sits, pouting in the passenger seat, whole body turned, back resting against the door.

“You were supposed to ask.”

Slowly, he nods, feeling a bit lost, floating out at sea, but not feeling scared. Just so, so confused.

“I’m sorry?”

Louis crosses his arms, pout in full force. “You don’t understand, you needed to _ask_ me and bring me _with_ you, so I could get one for _you_.”

Harry blinks again, before his smile returning to his lips as everything Louis is saying filters into his brain.

“I didn’t want to pressure you,” he assures him, “I needed, wanted, to get this because I wanted you to have something to hold onto, me. You have me, my love, my support. Every time you need me to, I’ll be there for you.”

He fishes out his phone, looks up his gallery and turns the screen to Louis, who takes it gently into his hands.

Louis stares at it for a few moments, expression turning from indignated, to comforted, to shocked, to so vulnerable that it makes Harry’s heart clench.

“You…,” Louis wets his lips, coughing a bit, as if to clear his throat, but his voice sounds just as choked up as before, “you got this for me?”

Harry smiles as he nods. “Yeah, Lou. ‘Course I did.”

Louis looks up, finally, his eyes wet and shining in an entirely different way than before, but the love is as clear and palpable as ever, and Harry leans over to press kisses against his lips, hand cradling Louis’ jaw.

“I love you,” he whispers against Louis’ lips, “so much.”

Louis kisses Harry in response, lingering for a minute, and Harry takes advantage to turn the kiss a little more passionate, using his hand on Louis’ jaw to press the other closer, closer, closer.

“I love you too,” Louis tells him when they break apart, his hand coming to caress the bandage on Harry’s wrist. “Sorry for hitting you.”

Harry shakes his head, “I didn’t know you wanted to do it, I should have asked.”

Louis pecks his lips, “still doesn’t mean I should hit you, even if it was loving.”

Harry kisses him in response, to convey his forgiveness, his love, his plans, his yearning for freedom, everything.

“Though,” Louis whispers, almost conspiratorially, “I did notice…”

Harry’s lips widen into a smile again, “yeah?”

“There’s no rope,” Louis muses, almost innocently, like he doesn’t want it to mean anything specific unless Harry says something.

He nods, adopting a fake curious facade, “there isn’t one, no.”

Louis softly traces the bandage on Harry’s wrist, almost like he’s trying to draw the anchor himself, or maybe the rope.

“Wouldn’t want the anchor to sink,” he tells Harry, “without a rope, it sinks and disappears, but the rope keeps it, I don’t know, safe and ensures it comes back home?”

Harry leans his forehead against Louis’, closing his eyes, breathing in the moment.

“Yeah, without the rope, the anchor would be pointless, would just sink to the bottom of the sea.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then Louis takes a deep breath.

“I could…”, he draws back, and Harry opens his eyes to meet Louis’, “I could get the rope?”

Harry’s face lights up in a smile and he nods immediately. “Nothing would make me happier.”

It’s not a marriage proposal, he thinks, but it’s close. It’s something permanent. It’s a part of each other, for each other, on their skin, that’ll never leave them. But he doesn’t look down and sees a shackle, not like he’s felt so often with his career, but rather looks down and sees a promise. Thumbing along Louis’ wrist, he thinks, they’re doing this. They’re promising each other, without saying anything, the future, and they’re doing it all in front of the suits who will never be able to understand it, see it, put two and two together.

Circling Louis’ wrist, he leans his head a little to the side.

“Louis,” he says, gently, “I don’t want you to ever feel like something you have no control over is gonna turn you into a monster. I’m here for you, Lou. Always. I’m gonna make sure you’re only ever going to be the same person you are now, sweet and caring and kind and protective. You wanting to use your powers for good, to change the circumstances we’re living in, to make it better for all of us, that’s not evil. You’re not gonna turn into some supervillain, you’re not gonna turn into someone as corrupted as the suits. I know it feels scary, I know you don’t want it, and I’m here to remind you that that is why you will never change for the worse. You’re so inherently _good_ that you worry about maybe, sometime, in the future using something forced upon you wrong.”

Louis’ eyes are a little bit wet, but they’re so full of love, and though he’s not saying anything, just looking at Harry with such wonder, Harry feels so happy to have gotten through to Louis.

“I love you,” he assures him again, enunciating every word, leaving no room for Louis to mishear it. “For who you are, and who you are, Louis Tomlinson, is someone who’s so good, caring, admiring, strong, talented, kind, compassionate, that I can only dream to keep up.”

Louis kisses him as soon as he’s finished.

Leaning back, he looks over at Harry with a little spark in his eyes, “don’t worry about keeping up, babe, you have your good looks.”

Harry laughs, open and bright, and it feels so good. This, being here. It feels right, like everything good in the world, centered right in this car.

Tomorrow, he’ll start fighting for them all, he’ll fight for the right to hold Louis’ hand, he’ll start fighting for them taking care of all the boys’ well being, and with the support of the others, he’s sure they’ll win.

Today he’ll spend surrounded by the love and happiness of spending an entire day in the sunshine with Louis.

“So what,” Niall says, “you want us to march to the offices, like a couple of delinquents going to the principal’s office, on one of our only days off?”

Harry looks around at the other boys before nodding. “Yes, Niall. I want us to go up to the offices and make them realise that they won’t be allowed to treat us like this for any longer.”

Liam nods along with him, “I’m with you, Harry, I am, but isn’t it risky? We could risk them tightening our leashes even more.”

He sighs, takes a deep breath, tries to remember all his prepared lines and arguments to make the others see that this is one of the only chances they have to make the suits see that this shouldn’t be allowed to go on for even a second longer.

“I know you’re scared, we have so much riding on this,” he holds a little pause, gets his thoughts in order, “but I’d rather go down fighting, than letting them destroy us, ruining us beyond repair. We’re being worked to our fucking bones here, we don’t have time to breathe before we’re getting dragged out of our beds on our supposedly resting days to do promotion, do interviews where they ask us invasive questions to feed the masses and get themselves some juicy headlines to sell more papers and get more clicks. We’re being used. We don’t have control over what we can say, what we can’t say, how we present ourselves, how we move. We barely even are allowed to breathe unless they tell us how. We’re so flossed and worn down that we can barely stand looking at each other when we get the opportunity to be ourselves.”

There’s silence for a bit before Zayn, who’s been quiet since they met up. “I’ll do it.”

Liam looks at him with surprise, and then quickly turns to wonder and pride. “If Zayn is in, so am I.”

Harry smiles broadly at them before turning to Niall, putting on a serious expression once again.

“Niall, they’re barely letting your knee rest, it’s getting worse every day, we can all see it. Please, Niall. I only want us to have the basic rights of freedom.”

Niall’s fiddling nervously with his fingers, twisting them, twisting his wrists, trying to clamber down the obvious nervousness. He gets like this before a big show too, where he’s been limping around all through rehearsal, nervous he can’t put on the show required from him, the show he wants to put on for himself, for the fans.

“Niall,” he tries to reassure him, “you remember what Simon said? How we were the first act he wanted to sign even though we didn’t win? How we had already proved ourselves before even getting to do anything besides X Factor? He put his faith, his money in us because we were popular. We’d gotten more fans than any other act has ever had. We were already _someone_ when One Direction didn’t win, and we would get here where we are eventually. It might not have been as lightning fast as Simon gave us the opportunity to, but we’d get here eventually.”

Niall is looking at him with such unsure eyes.

“If worse comes to worst, we won’t lose everything. The fans, our fans, made One Direction in the first place, they’ll help us rebuild and recover like they did then. We’ve got leverage, we’re the reason for so many of the money in their pockets. If we put our feet down, as a unit, they won’t be able to deny us. They wouldn’t dare.”

Louis keeps his hand firmly clasped in Harry’s, softly tracing the anchor on his wrist, looking fondly down at his rope. The rope folded in an infinity symbol with broken ends like it needs to be knotted, tightened around something.

Two halves of one whole.

“Harry is right,” he says softly, “we can’t do this. We’re gonna break. We’re already so close to the edge, each and every one of us.”

They all nod, and Niall, almost instinctively, rubs his knee, like it’s hurting just at the thought of them being pressured, them being back on the road in a few days time, even more work outs, even more running around, even more pressure in its already delicate state.

“Niall, I’m not suggesting we ruin our entire career,” he gently assures him, “we’ve all worked so incredibly hard to get where we are, our fans have worked hard. But no money, no amount of fame and success, should be worth breaking ourselves over. We can’t keep going on keeping our true selves under the lid, we can’t keep going lying to our fans because someone else is trying to install fear into us that we’re gonna ruin everything if we let them see just a tiny glimpse of who we are. That we’re gonna become irrelevant if we let ourselves have time to breathe and just _be_.”

Niall nods along by the end, looks down at his knee, tightens his hand around it, and then, visibly steeling himself, looks up with a renewed fire in his eyes.

“Let’s do it then,” he says, and though his voice is still shaking, his eyes are sure, and Harry feels so proud of him, of them all, in this moment.

He always feels proud of them, but in this moment, they’re standing together. They’re ready to take on everyone who’s ever wanted to cheat gullible children with stars in their eyes and their focus only on their dream, not all the commitments written in small, written in a language only someone educated in law would be able to figure out what meant.

They sold themselves when they signed that contract, that’s clear to see, but hindsight always is. They’ve lived through the nightmare, they’ve more than suffered for their naive mistakes made in times past.

This is them taking back who they are, their identities, their lives.

Outside, the sun is shining bright like the sky is trying to show its support.

Standing outside of the offices, like he and Louis did once before, he feels a dread he’s only ever felt once before, when he auditioned for the X-Factor the first time around.

It feels kind of symbolic in a way, that he feels the dread he felt at the beginning of this adventure, that he’s now feeling at what is hopefully not the end of the adventure, but definitely the end of the exploitation.

“Boys,” the head suit says lazily when the secretary lets them in, like he’s ready to wave away all their complaints without them even opening their mouths, it angers him, reignites the fire that had begun to diminish the longer they stood in the hall, looking at the mahogany door, so needlessly expensive, rubbing the wealth that the suits have gotten from exploiting thousands of artists through the time.

He’s ready for this. He’s not backing down.

“We’re here to renegotiate our contracts.”

All the suits around the table, look at them with surprise and thinly veiled amusement.

“Do take a seat, boys,” Simon says, and Harry feels so stupid on behalf of his 16 year old self who looked at this man and thought he wanted them all well. Maybe he did, but not at the expense of losing money, not at the expense of them being free to explore who they are and present themselves to the world as they were.

They don’t take a seat. He refuses to sit and feeling talked down to, he refuses to be the same Harry who sat there once, read over contracts and words he didn’t quite understand. He refuses to be the Harry that was so hopeful, that was so scared to have this massive opportunity taken away from him that he said yes to whatever they threw at him with little to renegotiate because he could see the ticks in Simon’s eye telling him he needed to thread carefully.

He doesn’t even want to know how little the other boys were allowed to say no to because as the suits made clear from the start, he was the one they were investing the most in. He was apparently the girls’ favourite.

It made him feel sick then, it makes him feel sick now, to remember himself being diminished to something to sell, their fans boxed as thirsty fangirls only interested in looks, and to hear his band members, his brothers, the love of his life, being waved aside as nothing but backing vocals to Harry Styles™ . 

“No, thank you,” Louis says, almost like he’s reading Harry’s mind and despite the seriousness of the situation, Harry can’t help but throw him a smile. “We’re good right where we are.”

Simon looks at them like he’s trying to rein himself in, but he does manage to plaster on a smile.

Harry feels a morbid satisfaction at seeing Simon being the one to put on a facade this time around. See how he likes being the one who has to act and push his real words down.

“So, what do you want changed?”

“Just about everything,” Harry tells them, feeling brave, feeling bold.

“Everything, you say?”, Simon says, and his tone is dripping with condescension. “Can you be a bit more specific?”

Liam steps in. “You’ve been working us to the bone, you’ve been ignoring our ailments in exchange for making more bank on us, you’ve been forcing us to lie in the faces of honest questions because you think it’ll hurt our sales. You’ve driven us to our breaking point time and time again, giving us just enough days off that we don’t break entirely. You’re pressuring Niall time and time again despite doctors telling him to get a surgery so his knee doesn’t become irreversibly fucked up, pardon my French. You’ve told Harry and Louis especially to hide their love because you think the world as homophobic as you and incapable of handling the thought of two of their idols being in love despite a big part of them time and time again voice their continued support for them, using Louis’ supposedly personal social media especially to slam down on them, in order to feed your own heteronormative image. You’ve ignored Zayn and mines plea for help with our anxieties, told us to keep working, told us to think about how our fans would think if we had to cancel a show despite Zayn having panic attacks before them. You’ve worked us so hard we were working on constant overtiredness day after day, working us to the bone to do a world tour while also recording the next album.”

“We’ve done only what we felt was needed to make you as successful as possible, mr. Payne,” one suit breaks in.

They all shake their head, and Harry picks it up again. “You have, but only to benefit you. You’ve regarded our basic needs time and time again to make us be more productive, you’ve ignored doctor’s notices in order to make more money, you’ve ignored critical mental health issues in order for us to appear as perfect and polished. You’ve displayed an inhumane amount of homophobia and gaslighting in order for Louis and I to hide who we are because you don’t think that two men in a relationship is gonna sell. We have millions of supporters and you hate that idea so much that you would rather use our names and platforms to shut them down. This isn’t even about sales, it’s about you refusing to go with the times, living in your own little fantasy that the only acceptable kind of love is between a man and a woman.”

The silence that is left by his words, by Liam’s words, is deafening in and of its own. Simon’s is glaring at them, fire in his eyes, like he’d want nothing more than slap each and every one of them for _daring_ to speak up against them all.

For daring to go against the establishment.

Tough luck, he thinks, they’re here, and they’re ready to fight. They can bring out everything they want to, him and the boys aren’t going anywhere without getting what they want. What they deserve, what they _need_ in order to even be able to go on.

“Mr. Styles,” one suit says, tone cold as ice, and Harry automatically steels himself. He’s not the Harry he was, he reminds himself, he isn’t going to cower before them. “We took a chance on you five, five young men, five rascals, and we gave you everything. We invested everything in you, and this is the gratitude you give us? We made you, and you’re here, in open rebellion, to what? Make us change the contracts you yourselves agreed to and signed?”

“You didn’t make us,” Louis says, tone cold, but polite, “you saw an opportunity because of fan gathering we’d already made during the course of the X-Factor. You saw how quickly we gained popularity. You didn’t take a chance on us because you already knew that given the right amount of promotion, we’d skyrocket. You didn’t make us, the fans made us. You just gave us the opportunity to get where we are faster, but with the help of our fans, we’d have gotten here regardless.”

It’s pretty much what Harry himself said earlier, and it feels so good to have those words cast back at the suits who begin to squirm.

They know it’s true. They know that One Direction’s success isn’t down to their old-fashioned promotion techniques, they know that the fans and social media is what really brought them to this level of fame. That without all the thousands of fans that turned into millions in the blink of an eye, One Direction would be what X-Factor had predicted them to be: third rang performers.

“You need us,” a suit tells them, gloats at them, “without us, you’ll have no team. Your popularity might be from your fans, but we built your foundations. Take us on, and we can easily rip the rug from underneath your feet.”

Harry shakes his head, but before he can say something, Niall jumps in.

“We’re millionaires,” he reminds them, “and we’re no longer the children you once sought out to mold as you pleased. We know the industry far better now than we did then. We’re millionaires, we’re the hottest gig on the planet right now. If you abandon us, we’ll have no trouble finding another label to take us on, one that we can negotiate with to get the terms we want. If we can’t find our own label, we are not short in means of starting one ourselves.”

Simon is openly laughing at them, shaking his head, like they’re being silly kids at the playground, fighting about something as inconsequential as a ball, and not their entire fucking lives.

“You think you can just walk away, if we decide to drop you? You’ll be bound by contracts, even if you don’t want to, you won’t be allowed to perform and record under the name of One Direction for several years until the contracts run out. You might not think you’re mortal any longer, lads, but you’re a brand now, and we own that brand. You might think you can make us play like little dolls by standing over there, trying to appear strong and mighty, but you can’t argue with the law. We’ll drag your asses to hell in court if you even try.”

“You aren’t gonna drop us,” Louis tells them, and his voice is silky, yet hard, and Harry looks over at him in alarm, trying to get him to not make the mistake he’s so afraid of making. “Our fans might not be millionaires like you are, they might not have money in the pockets of the biggest people in the industry, but when they talk in unison, people, the media, have to listen. They won’t be able not to. Us disappearing would make them go crazy on social media, us going to court? Will start an apocalypse. It’ll bring the heavens down on _you_ , and it’ll leave you with a reputation you won’t be able to escape.”

The suits look at him like they’re caught in a trance, and Harry wonders how much power Louis is putting into his voice.

He slowly walks over and slides his hand into Louis’, lining up their tattoos, reminds Louis that Harry is here. That he won’t allow him to glide away into the feeling of power that comes with his silver tongue.

“You’re not gonna drop us,” Louis repeats, voice as smooth as before, but not quite as steely, and he tightens his hold on Harry’s, almost like he’s trying to say ‘don’t worry, I haven’t lost sight of myself in this’, “we bring you so much money, you wouldn’t even have let us talk for this long if you didn’t already know that. We’re your cash cow. Don’t be arrogant fools and let us go. Be as smart as you claim to be, and let’s start negotiating.”

Simon shifts uncomfortably, small cracks in the iron facade appearing, and Harry holds his breath as he looks around at the other suits.

They’re bending, he realises, they’re bowing down to their demands, their resolve breakening with each word Louis tells them. 

They, him and the boys, are winning.

It’s an exhilarating thought, and even though they’re far from being safe, it’s hard not to get lost in the feeling, in the relief. In the feeling of power.

He presses himself tightly against Louis, tries to get him back from where he’s gone with his power, tries to give him his strength.

Louis blinks a little, looks over at Harry, and smiles softly.

He’s not lost at sea.

The suits murmur a bit amongst themselves, and Harry uses the time to look at the other boys. They’re already looking back, or rather they’re looking at Louis, eyes wide, confused, but another part, that’s quickly winning out, hopeful.

“Alright, boys,” Simon says, and it sounds like he’s trying not to vomit, “let’s negotiate.”

It doesn’t feel real as they go out the door several hours later. It’s supposed to be dark outside, but the sun is shining brightly, like the sky is welcoming them back, like it’s celebrating with them, and he almost laughs in relief.

“That…”, Liam starts out, slowly shaking his head, like he has the words right at the tip of his tongue, but they’re escaping him.

It’s pretty much how Harry feels.

“- was absolute madness,” Niall finishes for him, carding his fingers through his hair, eyes big and wild, but there’s a smile on his face that can’t be mistaken.

“We did it, lads,”, Zayn breathes, and there’s tears in his eyes, as if he can’t quite believe it, like he’s carried a boulder around like Sisyphos and he thought he’d forever be pushing it up the hill only for it roll down the other side. That he’d never be free, that he’d never be able to get help and have time to breathe.

Liam immediately circles his arms around him, pressing his forehead to Zayn’s, arms going up and down his sides, before going up to settle, cupping Zayn’s face in his hands, pressing in tighter, eyes squeezed tight, breathing a bit erratic but little by little calming down.

Harry turns to Louis, immediately going for his hand, picking it up to press a kiss to his knuckles, to the side of it, all the way down to his new tattoo of the anchor where he lets his lips linger.

Louis slides his hand through Harry’s hair, and Harry knows how Louis would look if he opened his eyes. Open, vulnerable, soft. Just as Harry likes him best.

When he opens his eyes and raises his head, he has to press his lips together so as not to give into the ball in his throat, his eyes stinging with tears they’re begging him to let go.

“We’re free,” he breathes, and it feels surreal, it feels like a forbidden thing to say, like just stating it outloud will make it disappear, will make the suits rip open the door only to take everything away from them once more.

It doesn’t feel real. But it _is_.

He kisses Louis desperately, tries to convey his happiness, the residual panic and adrenaline in him that he couldn’t afford to show in there, the sheer and utter relief.

“Thank you,” he breathes in between kisses, “thank you, thank you, I love you, I love you.”

Thank you for using your power. Thank you for staying true to yourself. I love you, I’m proud of you. I love you, I knew you could do it.

“I love you.” I’m staying here.

He leans down to rest his head on Louis’ shoulder, and Louis’ arms embrace his waist easily like he always does. It’s comforting, it’s safe. He feels so content, he feels emotional, and he feels _so goddamn happy_.

They stand in their own little world for a bit, or for a long while, he doesn’t even know. With Louis, time seems like such a fickle thing.

“Ehm, lads?”, Niall’s voice a little unsure interrupts them, and all of them break apart, though Harry takes Louis’ hand in his own, refusing to let entirely go of him. He’s allowed to not do that now. He still can’t believe it.

“I hate to like, ruin this moment,” he looks so unsure, and Harry is so confused by it, “because obviously, this is huge. I’m so proud of us, and so thankful. Thank you for making me see sense, I’m-” he cuts off, breath snapping a bit, like he’s run out of it, and he blinks against the light like he too is trying to chase away tears, “I didn’t think this would ever happen. Me getting time of for the surgery, I didn’t, I didn’t even hope after the last months.”

He takes a deep breath, steels himself like he’d done earlier that day. “But I need to ask you, Louis, what happened in there. They were laughing at us one minute, and they next, they- I don’t know what to say, because it sounds so crazy, but it was like they _listened_ , they _understood_ and it was only after you spoke up.”

Liam coughs a bit from the side, and Harry looks over, a little in alarm, hand squeezing Louis’ tightly.

He can feel a storm brewing in his mind, can almost hear the wind picking up outside, can see it in the tree outside the window, beginning to sway from side to side.

“It was weird because it was like I could feel your words echo inside me? I don’t know how to explain it either, but I was like pulled in, like a moth to a flame.”

Zayn doesn’t say anything, but he’s nodding along.

“What happened in there, Louis?” Niall demands to know, “because I understand jack shit, but I need some answers. I feel like I watched a magician perform a show, or a puppet master work the strings on his-”

“No!”, Louis exclaims harshly, eyes wide open, begging for Niall to shut up right then and there. “No, please don’t say that.”

Liam lets go of Zayn completely, and walks slowly over to Louis, arm raised a bit like trying to convey that he’s coming in peace.

“Louis, what happened?”

He breathes in and out, shaking, and he looks to Harry with panic in his eyes. Harry breathes in deeply, eyes locked with Louis, and then slowly out, and does it all over again until Louis follows him suit, slowly getting through the harsh breathing and gets back to calm breaths.

“You’re okay,” Harry whispered, thumb gently caressing his rope, “you’re alright, safe.”

“Yeah,” Louis agrees softly, closing his eyes for a moment, before opening them again, looking resolved and ready to take on the world. Harry wants to remind him that he’s not up against the world, he’s just explaining it all to his friends.

“I can’t explain it, know that. I don’t know how or why,” he begins, “I just know that it is. And that I have it. Since I was young, I’d been able to get away with all sorts of shit with only a reminder not to do it again, even if it was the twentieth time I did it. I always had the same defence speech ‘I’m sorry, I promise to not do it again, I really am sorry, please believe me’ or something along those lines. The key phrases there are ‘not do it again’ and ‘believe me’. I don’t remember exactly how I discovered it, it was gradually, it was me trying out different approaches but if I meant it, it was still the same outcome. I got off for whatever I did wrong with little to no punishment.”

He takes a breath.

“What I’m trying to say is that I have a power to make people believe me, to follow my word,” he’s not looking at any of them, but he hasn’t let Harry’s hand go, “as soon as I realised it, I began to do everything I could to control it. I’d keep my mouth shut if I was caught doing a prank, if I got caught stealing some chocolate in the dead of the night. I didn’t defend myself and people began punishing me as they should have done, giving me detentions, reprimanding me for real. I couldn’t stay silent all the time, of course, so I learned to keep it locked away. It slips out sometimes, but I always, always try to keep it away. I don’t want it, but-”

He finally looked up, and Harry almost couldn’t hold back his pride smile at that. Seeing Louis with a straight back, lifted head.

Not letting anyone talk him down.

“I won’t not use it to help us. I’m not changing them fundamentally, they still have their views, what I’m doing is making them see it my way, forcing them to listen to me, understand what they say. Mostly they all listen.”

“And if they don’t?”, Niall dares to ask, face a bit guarded, but he’s not afraid, and that’s _good_.

Louis looks a little sad at that. “They all do, in the end. If I need them to. And I needed them to today, but I rarely ever do it. I’ve never done it to you guys, I promise.”

“Hey, hey,” Liam breaks in, hand raised and then moves in calm motions, repetitive, up and down, up and down, “we’d never think that Louis. Never. We know you, you’d never do that.”

Harry lets the smile take over his entire face at that. He loves these boys so much.

Zayn chimes in as well, “I think, if I’m honest, you’re the best person to have that power. More selfless person you’re gonna need to look far and wide for.”

Harry nods enthusiastically along ot his words, “yes, that’s what I said as well.”

Louis looks close to tears as he looks from one accepting and smiling face to another, like he can’t quite believe this is real, like he’d built himself up for rejection, for fear, for hatred. But he’s not getting that, and it’s like his brain can’t quite process it.

Harry leans down a little to press a kiss to his hair, lets himself linger, breathe in Louis’ fragrance that always reminds him of home.

“We love you,” Niall assures him, “and we trust you, of course we do.”

Liam throws out his arms, “let’s bring it in, lads.”

A group hug is actually exactly what they all need, and it feels a bit like coming home to stand in a circle with these boys, for once not feeling like this is all they can do to not fall apart, but just be in this moment.

It feels like the beginning of the freedom they just fought tooth and nail to achieve.

The next days feel like some sort of limbo, it feels a bit like the beginning. A new beginning.

They’re all together at Harry and Louis’ house, just lounging around, Louis and Liam sneaking off more often than not, sparring with words and melodies, being coy about what songs they’re cooking up.

Harry sits a lot on the porch, looking at the sky turn different colours a little by little, writing down words that maybe will turn into songs, but mostly just feels like words from his heart that he wants to put down. Some of them feels a little outdated, feels like they belong to another Harry who wished things were different, but they’re part of his journey, and he wants to honour them.

Most of the pages in his journal, however, are filled with all the thoughts and ideas that’s come from the relief of their newfound, newly gained freedom. How he now looks at his future and sees only sunshine.

He’d rather walk amongst sunshine, he’s decided, than be amongst the stars.

“You know,” Niall’s voice breaks the quiet, and Harry whips around in his chair, slowly pushing his sunglasses up to rest in his hair, “I always had my suspicions. Ever since X-Factor.”

Harry frowns at him, trying to figure out what he’s on about, and Niall laughs a little at his confusion.

“The sky, mate,” he says gesturing to said sky, now changing from blue to lilac, “don’t even try and deny it. I just wanted to say I know, and there’s no reason for you to not stand by it.”

He’s opening and closing his mouth, feeling a bit like a fish, trying to find the proper words, but them escaping him at every turn.

“You mean,” he shakes his head once, clears his throat, “you mean, you knew?”

Niall shrugs a bit, “as I said, I suspected. The sky changed a bit too much during those early days for it to be normal. In general, the sky, the weather changes a bit too much around you to be normal.”

“And you don’t-”, he throws his hand out, shrugging a little, he’s so confused, relieved, but mostly confused, a little scared too, “you don’t think I’m a, I don’t know, freak?”

Niall looks a little surprised before quickly shaking his head, “no. No, mate, of course I don’t. It’s cool, it’s sick. You literally can go around painting city red.”

Harry looks at him, waiting for the punchline to drop.

“Oh, you don’t know? Don’t mind me then,” he laughs, “it was a popular Danish song from way, way back my nan was obsessed with. About painting the city red, or the sky. One of those.”

Harry grins a little at the absolute callousness of Niall, the way he can admit to knowing Harry had what is basically a superpower and relate it to some obscure song sung in an obscure language.

“You’re a wonder, Niall,” he tells him, and Niall shrugs.

“Yeah, I know, Haz,” he reassures him, “don’t need to tell me facts I already know. Now, tell me what you’ve been working on, yeah?”

Harry smiles at him for a moment, just taking in how amazing friends he has, how amazing Niall is, and then nods. “Yeah, come on.”

“How do you wanna do it, Haz?”, Louis asks him when they’re lying in the darkness, just relaxing together, some random episode of Gogglebox running on the TV. 

“Hmm?”, he inquires sleepily, coming out of his half-slumber of just relaxing while running his fingers up and down Louis’ arm.

“How do you wanna tell the world?”, Louis clarifies, and Harry immediately blinks awake.

He looks down at Louis, sees the seriousness in his eyes, and feels so warm and fond. They’re in a position to discuss this for real, not just fantasise about it, hope for the day it might actually happen, that one day they’ll gain the freedom to do it on their own terms, how _they_ want to and feel comfortable doing.

“Not in an interview,” he says, shuddering at the thought of telling the people who’d asked him about his sexual experiences when he was _sixteen_ that not only has he had sex, but it’s gay sex. Give them even more ammunition to attack his private life with.

Louis nods along with him, “definitely not. They’ve been pushing agendas on behalf of Simon for years now. They don’t get to have this. They don’t get to ruin, taint this.”

Harry lets himself rest his head more comfortably against Louis’ chest, fingers still dancing lightly over his arms. This is the feeling he always wanted. To know that there’s a future for them, in One Direction, where the world knows who they are.

No secrets, no lies, no facades that’s there shield the truth.

“I don’t want to let anyone into our relationship,” he says quietly, “I want us to always be us. But I also wanna be able to show the children the world around that you don’t have to love the opposite gender, that they’re perfect as they are, that there’s more to the world than the narrow minded people in their lives right now. There’s hope, there’s light at the end of the dark, and when you get there, you’ll feel so at home.”

Louis lays his fingers on Harry’s jaw, gently forcing him to look up, to meet Louis’ impossibly soft eyes.

“Then let’s give them that,” he whispers, and his tone is one of reverence, “let’s give them reassurance and hope. We don’t need to give them gossip for that, we can refuse to talk about anything else but how much we wish our relationship brings hope to the little kids around the world. How much we hope we can help just one child realise they’re perfect as they are.”

Harry nods, thinking back on Holmes Chapel, thinks back on Alex and Tommy he’d heard so much about but never met, and how much he wishes he could go back and tell that little boy that everything would be alright.

He can’t travel in time, but he can tell all the little Harrys around the world that there’s more to the world than small towns and small minds. There’s an entire world, there’s an entire community, just waiting to take them in, and show them everything that’s good.

He wants to show all the Harrys, the Louis’, the Liams and the Zayns around the world, that there’s hope. And hope can be so powerful, he knows that, has lived off of it for over a year now.

“Do you know how I’d want to do it?”

Louis hums curiously.

“I’d take your hand, like this,” he demonstrates by taking Louis’ hand in his, gliding their fingers together, “line up the anchor and rope. I’d take a picture, and just before one of our shows started, I’d post it. Maybe you’d post it as well. We’d close our phones, let the internet go wild, and we’d walk out on stage, hands still tightly wound together.”

He takes a little pause, lets the words settle, and Louis moves a bit under him, breathing against his hair, making his strands move a little and tickle him.

“Go on, love,” he urges him softly.

“We’d go out together,” Harry continues, smiling at the thought, “and we’d not let go until we absolutely needed to. We’d do the concert exactly as we did the first times, we’d be close, we’d banter, we’d fool around. We’d be wild and unruly, basically. And we’d be sure to take extra time to pay attention to the pride flags, we’d be sure to let people know how encouraged they are to bring them. We’d hold a little speech, both of us, talking directly to all the little children around the world.”

Louis smiles against his head, he can feel, and soon small drops of water hits his head, and he gently leans back from his position on Louis’ chest.

“Are you alright, darling?”, he asks, fingers instinctively going to wipe away Louis’ tears. Caring for Louis like he promised to do way back then.

Louis nods, smile so enchantingly beautiful in the half dark, half light from the television.

“I’m more than alright, Harry,” he whispers, “I’m so happy, so happy, I can’t even tell you.”

Harry can feel the tears press on, and he doesn’t have the energy, nor the want, to hold them back and lets them fall slowly, one by one.

“You want that?”

Louis laughs quietly, nods along, “yeah, yeah, I want that, Harry. That sounds amazing.”

“Yeah?”, Harry asks hopefully, giddily. 

Louis leans into kiss him, once, twice, thrice, again, and again, and all Harry can do is try and keep him there, hands on his jaw, thumbs caressing his cheeks.

“Then we’ll do that.”

It feels like such a relief, it feels like paradise on Earth, if he’s being entirely honest. The thought of them finally doing it. Doing it the way they both want to, feel comfortable with.

He’s filled with such a sense of euphoria that he can’t quite keep it inside, and outside, lights immediately start to flash, and he looks out.

Like an aurora borealis, the colours of the rainbow dances across the sky. He feels breathless looking at it, and beside him, Louis sits up, eyes wide, mouth agape, tears still rolling slowly down both their cheeks.

“It’s beautiful, Harry,” Louis breathes, sounding choked up, like never before. “It’s absolutely gorgeous. How did you do that?”

Harry slowly shakes his head, eyes soft in wonder at whatever the sky is. “I didn’t, I was just so happy. And so hopeful about our future. It did it all on its own, taking care of me, us, like it’s always done.”

Louis smiles at him for a bit, then takes in a deep, shuddering breath, leaning back to scramble through his drawer by the bedside. Harry only vaguely notes this, eyes too caught up in watching the rainbow lights dance across the night sky.

“Thank you,” he mouths, and the rainbow pulses a little, like it’s been listening, like it’s communicating with him. He’s slowly realising, they’ve been communicating through his entire life. Besides Louis, the sky probably knows him the best.

Louis pulls out one of his lighters, lights the little scented candle, sandlewood, that Harry gave him, turns off the television.

“I wanted to do it more elaborately,” he starts, “and I know that you’re gonna be so mad at me, I know you wanted to do it, and you’ll still get to do it, I promise you. It’s not official, so you’ll still get the last say. It’s more of a promise of that day coming, the day you’ll be asking me the question.”

Harry looks over at Louis, feeling a little confused, but also so happy, and like he knows exactly where this is headed.

Louis pulls out a little box, inside it is a very simple, but stunning ring, the word ‘peace’ engraved in it.

“Harry Edward Styles,” Louis begins, a little smile playing on his lips, “will you do the honour of one day proposing to me and marry me? Will you do me the honour of promising you to me, and I’ll promise me to you?”

Harry laughs a little, immediately motions to wipe away the new flood of tears, nodding immediately. “Yes, yes, of course, Lou. I’d be honoured.”

Louis’ smile is so big and he immediately slides on the ring on Harry’s ring finger, fitting perfectly - “I might have measured your finger when you were sleeping, I’m not sorry, sorry” - and it looks so perfect. So beautiful. It looks like the future he’d known was gonna be his since he was sixteen, and here is the final seal, the final proof. The final promise.

“I love you,” Harry whispers, leaning in to kiss Louis.

“I love you,” Louis says right back, “and I’m so excited. For us, for the future, for everything that’s gonna happen.”

Harry nods along to every word. “It’s gonna be everything we ever dreamed about, Lou, finally we’ll be able to say we made it.”

Louis smiles and kisses him again.

Outside, the lights are lighting up the entire sky, ever warmer, and the sky feels such joy looking at its little boy, all grown up, so confident and radiant. Shining brighter than even its own sun.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reaching to the end! I hope you've enjoyed the ride, and that you were just as endeared by Harry and Louis as I have been!
> 
> This fic has a tumblr post if you wanna reblog it, you can do that here :) thank you!
> 
> A huge thank you in advance if you choose to leave comments and kudos, otherwise I hope that you liked the story and I hope you have a great day :D


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